The American Legion - Department of Georgia                                          
3035 Mt. Zion Road, Stockbridge, GA 30281

Re: Job and Education Opportunities for Georgia Veterans                                        December 1, 2016

Georgia Veterans want you to support opportunities to improve the availability of good paying jobs and maintaining the affordability of college education for our kids. As you know, the HOPE Scholarship is in financial danger with education’s rising costs and a slowdown in state funding. You can help by protecting the HOPE Scholarship with increased funding from gaming revenue so that our families are not saddled with increasing student debt. Without adding more revenue into HOPE we can only expect its promise tuition coverage to get farther out of reach.

By contributing more revenue into the HOPE Scholarship we can save HOPE from financial danger and boost its program reach. Georgia Veterans need the HOPE Scholarship for our families; we need the jobs that high-quality casino gaming would bring. Let Georgians decide on casino gaming and increasing revenue to protect HOPE.

MGM Resorts International is interested in building one of their beautiful resorts here in Georgia.  MGM Resorts International develops, builds and operates unique destination resorts designed to provide a total resort experience, including first-class accommodations and dining, world-class entertainment, state-of-the-art meeting and convention facilities, and high-quality retail and gaming experiences.

Georgia’s Economy would be boosted by $5 billion with a MGM destination resort located here.  The creation of jobs for up to 30,000 new, good-paying jobs with 63% of these being in non-gaming fields, such as accounting, marketing, human resources, retail, hospitality and more.  MGM would contribute $250 million for Hope Scholarships each year.

Georgia has a very high population of veterans with many more returning from deployment and being separated after proudly serving their country.  Veterans need to come home to good paying jobs and being able to afford college education for our families. MGM has a veteran-recruiting program called “BOOTS to BUSINESS” where they promote Leaders in the Field, Leaders in the Workplace.  This company would be a huge asset for our Georgia Veterans and additional gaming revenue would protect the HOPE Scholarship well into the future.

Georgia Veterans need you to support opportunities for good paying jobs. Georgia Veterans also need opportunities for our families. The HOPE Scholarship is in financial danger. We want the HOPE Scholarship to be there for our kids long into the future. You can do your part by supporting opportunities for jobs and our education.

In the Spirit of Caring for Our Veterans

Thom Mash, Past Commander

American Legion Department of Georgia                                                         

             3035 Mt. Zion Road Stockbridge, GA 30281                                678-289-8883