As prepared for delivery. The speaker may add or subtract comments during his presentation.

Hello everyone!

Thank you so much for having me.

It's great to join Postmaster General Megan Brennan, all the wonderful leaders with the Postal Service and the Combined Federal Campaign, and the representatives from charitable organizations here today.

The United States Postal Service is one of the great venerable institutions of our government-standing alongside our military as one of the first Federal responsibilities proposed by the Founding Fathers themselves in the U.S. Constitution.

Your unofficial motto is so famous that I don't even need to recite it. You know that nothing shall stay your couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

But it is wonderful that your service has been considered so faithful by the American people, that it will be forever associated with that grand phrase written by the Greek historian Herodotus two and a half millennia ago.

It has been a privilege to be named the Honorary Chairman of this year's Combined Federal Campaign-the world's largest annual workplace charity drive.

It is an appropriate vehicle for the love and goodwill I see every day from the team at HUD, and across so many federal agencies like the Postal Service.

Thousands of federal employees come to government to take part in its great mission to protect and defend the rights and general welfare of their countrymen.

As important as that mission is, and as joyfully as we embrace it, we cannot forget that private charity is the first foundation of social improvement in America.

According to Giving USA, an organization which tracks philanthropy in the United States, last year American individuals, estates, foundations, and corporations contributed about $390 billion to charitable causes.

It is clear that no government program can replace the generous heart of the American people.

And so we give of ourselves. Not merely in our chosen vocations, but in our personal action. In our donations, and in our volunteering.

We do this to set an example to each other and our neighbors whom we serve.

But most importantly, we do it for its own sake. For though the saying is old, it is no less true: generosity is its own reward.

So whether we march our dimes or race for a cure; form a corps for peace, an army for salvation, or support our own military veterans and their families; whether we protect the young, care for the elderly, or promote the sanctity of every human life-there are organizations which can use our help for a thousand such good causes.

I encourage my whole team at HUD, and everyone in government, to consider finding one close to their heart, and giving what they can to make our country, and the world, a better place.

Thank you.

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