Rockets star, first lady on court together
Dwight Howard and Barbara Bush team up at Toyota Center for rocking PSA
As of Monday afternoon, Houston Rocket Dwight Howard and former first lady Barbara Bush are BFFs, a friendship that was spawned during their rollicking filming of two public service announcements promoting Connect4Literacy.org.
With Howard dressed in his home uniform and Bush donning a custom Rockets jersey, the duo spent more than an hour at Toyota Center cutting up as only the world's wittiest 90-year-old and most gallant basketball player could. Think "slam dunk low literacy."
"Dwight is a fun loving guy," said Neil Bush, who co-chairs the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation with his wife, Maria. "And mom is about as witty as they come at the age of 90. They were very playful."
"It was so cute to see this shrinking little 90-year-old with this big, tall virile guy get along so well."
Neil Bush and Julie Baker Finck, president of the foundation, were among those on hand for the filming. The PSAs are slated to begin airing later this month.
The videos focus on literacy with the goal of mobilizing volunteers in the Houston area, calling on the community to “be a game-changer in the life of a child.”
The website, hosted by the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation, provides registration for individuals and groups who wish to sign up as literacy volunteers in a school, library or nonprofit located near them.
Howard's D12 Foundation, which focuses on early childhood education, reached out to the Bush foundation and as Baker Finck says "it was a marriage, a natural partnership both with the foundations and with the personalities."