White House Week

This week, the President participated in a town hall event, co-hosted with leading women's sites BlogHer and She Knows. During the conversation, the President talked with working women about some of the issues they care the most about -- such as paying for child care or sending their children to college.

Watch the video below:

There's still time to take part in the Joining Forces Twitter chats celebrating their 4th anniversary!

Homelessness: #HonoringVets
Twitter Chat: Tuesday, April 21 at 2:30 p.m. ET
Host: Colonel Steve Parker, Executive Director of Joining Forces

Employment: #HireAVet
Twitter Chat: Friday, April 24 at 3:30 p.m. ET
Host: Lieutenant Commander Kate Higgins-Bloom, White House Fellow at Joining Forces

Education: #KidsServeToo
Twitter Chat: Thursday, April 30 at 10:30 a.m. ET
Host: Jamie Lyons, Policy Director to Dr. Jill Biden

For further details click here. 

White House Week

#487457077 / gettyimages.com

On Thursday, the First Lady and Dr Biden announced that the Council on Foundations will lead the philanthropic community in establishing the Veterans Philanthropy Exchange, which will be an enduring forum for donors to communicate and share best practices about supporting the veteran and military communities. The First Lady announced that the philanthropic community is pledging more than $100 million over the next five years to support veterans and military families. These commitments will fund organizations that support service members, veterans, survivors, and their families. The First Lady also called upon more donors to join this effort in order to fully support all those nonprofits and community groups that do such wonderful work for the military and veteran communities every day.

Watch a video of their remarks below.



This week the White House announced the second Annual Hackathon will take place on May 29th. The focus of this year’s National Day of Civic Hacking event is 'Our Petitions Write API,' which is currently in beta testing, and will help even more Americans make their voices heard -- allowing them to use the platform of their choice to reach the White House.

Participants will focus on building out new ways of signing petitions, shaking loose any bugs, and collaborating on ways to improve the API and We the People in general.

If you have the skills necessary to work with APIs and especially if you’ve developed on petitions platforms before, click here to submit an application.

Team USA also entered in the Let's Move Olympics- joined by Bo and Sunny!

White House Week

Earlier this week, the President travelled to Asia on a six day trip to the region. The President visited Malaysia, Korea and the Philippines and reaffirmed his vision to the rebalancing of the world's largest region.

Check out the preview video here:



This week, Joining Forces celebrated its third anniversary. The First Lady and Dr. Biden joined the 101st Airborne Division at a comprehensive Veterans Jobs Summit and Career Forum to announce that more than 540,000 veterans and military spouses have been hired through Joining Forces. There have been commitments from America’s biggest firms like UPS, who announced a doubling of their commitment to 50,000 new hires and Xerox who have committed to hire 10,000 veterans and spouses over the next five years.  Find out more here.

White House Week

Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy

Earlier this week, President Obama stopped by a Gap store in New York to highlight the company's commitment to raising the minimum wage, as well as doing a little shopping for his wife and daughters. President Obama is asking Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Find out more information here.

With time running out to register for healthcare, the White House released a fun video targeting geeks. #GeeksGetCovered is encouraging tech-savvy individuals across the US to share via social what affordable healthcare coverage means to them. Watch the video below:

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On Wednesday, the First Lady joined the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Kermit the frog during a screening of Disney's 'Muppets Most Wanted' for military children and their families.

For this appearance she wore a wrap dress with a white patterned geometric detail.

Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson

On Wednesday, the President was joined by female members of Congress to discuss the women's agenda for 2014. The White House released some fascinating data on women in the workforce which can be viewed here.

White House Week

On Monday, President Obama hosted a special breakfast in the East Room of the White House for veterans and their families. Richard Overton, the oldest living World War II veteran was in attendance and the President thanked him for his service.

The President was joined by the First Lady, Vice President and Dr Biden when he participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. The First Lady and Dr Biden also penned this op-ed talking about how their Joining Forces initiative is making a difference to veterans and their familes.



On Tuesday, the First Lady visited Bell Multicultural High School in Washington DC, where she gave a speech about youth empowerment and education.

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

On Wednesday, President Obama signed into law the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act, which will encourage schools to plan for severe asthma attacks and allergic reactions, and provide millions of families with greater peace of mind.

The law makes an important change to the Children’s Asthma Treatment Grants Program and other federal asthma programs, which authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to give funding preferences to states for asthma-treatment grants if they: maintain an emergency supply of epinephrine (EpiPens), if they permit trained personnel of the school to administer epinephrine, and if they develop a plan for ensuring trained personnel are available to administer epinephrine during all hours of the school day. An estimated 9.5% of American children suffer from asthma, and between 4 and 6% of children are affected by food allergies, either of which can strike in an instant, and have life threatening consequences.

Honoring Military Mothers at the White House

Military mothers and daughters were treated to a surprise appearance from Prince Harry at a special White House tea yesterday.

For the event, the First Lady wore a Prabal Gurung Resort 2013 dress, and Dr Biden wore a white embroidered shift last seen at the Inauguration in January.

Making a commitment to America's Veterans and Military Spouses

The White House

In 2011, the Obama Administration challenged the private sector to hire or train 100,000 unemployed veterans or their spouses by the end of 2013. Last week, the First Lady announced that America's businesses had nearly tripled that goal, and have already hired or trained 290,000 veterans and military spouses. This is fantastic news!

Mrs Obama also announced that American companies have committed to hire or train another 435,000 veterans and military spouses over the next five years.

Some great examples include:

• BNSF Railroad committed to hire 5,000 veterans and military spouses in the next five years.
• UPS committed to hire 25,000 in the next five years. 
• Home Depot committed to hire 55,000 in the next five years.
• McDonald’s committed to hire 100,000 in the next three years.
• Walmart committed to hiring any veteran that served honorably the year after they separate from the service.
• Deloitte will double its veteran hiring over the next three years.
• USAA pledged that 30% of its new hires will be a veteran or military spouse. 
• The Blackstone Group challenged each of the 50,000 managers at its affiliated businesses to hire at least one veteran. 
• AT&T committed to creating an online military talent exchange.
• The International Franchising Association has helped more than 4,300 veterans own their own business since 2011.
• The U.S Chamber of Commerce just held its 400th hiring fair since last March for veterans.

For more information on Joining Forces and how you can get involved click here.

Plus I couldn't resist sharing this great behind the scenes photo from the event!

Pete Souza/The White House