FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 6/26/2008

Musical Icon Usher and Beau Rivage Partner to Support Housing Needs on the Gulf Coast

Current Initiative Continues Usher’s Commitment and Focus on Rebuilding the Region

BILOXI, Miss. - Five-time Grammy winning singer and philanthropist Usher Raymond, IV along with his foundation "New Look" will join forces with MGM MIRAGE’s Beau Rivage and other sponsors to enhance employee quality of life and assist in Gulf Coast rebuilding efforts.

This week, Usher will revisit the Gulf Coast in an effort to continue the work he began in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. On June 26 and 27, Usher's New Look foundation along with Beau Rivage, Trustmark National Bank and Visions of Hope will announce a partnership to offer home replacement and renovation assistance to Mississippi employees who owned homes that were destroyed significantly by Hurricane Katrina. The program is expected to impact between 80 and 100 families. Details will be announced Friday morning at a rally with 1,500 Beau Rivage employees. Administered through Visions of Hope, the Beau Rivage Employee Home Assistance Initiative will also provide homebuyer and financial education, training and counseling to Beau Rivage employees displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

“Beau Rivage’s Employee Home Assistance Initiative is a pilot ‘no strings attached’ grant program that can be used toward a down payment or closing cost to rebuild or renovate a home,” said George P. Corchis, Jr., president and chief operating officer of MGM MIRAGE’s Mississippi resorts, which includes Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi and the Gold Strike Casino Resort in Tunica. “Usher was instrumental in bringing this project together and it truly has been a cross collaboration of partners committed to the Gulf Coast’s recovery.”

Since 2005, New Look has provided support to more than 750 families through rent and utility assistance. While in Mississippi, Beau Rivage will host a special Club Tiki event to benefit Usher’s New Look foundation. A $10 donation will get fans in the door and include a chance to win prizes. One hundred percent of the proceeds with benefit Gulf Coast recovery efforts.

While on the Gulf Coast, Usher, along with City Year, will partner with Samuel Green Charter School in midtown New Orleans to present a beautification project featuring the schools edible schoolyard. Participants will create murals to help renew the school which was damaged extensively due to Hurricane Katrina.

Usher will end his time in the area on Friday with a tour of New Orleans Children's Hospital and a meeting with professionals from the LSU Health Sciences Center and U.S. Doctors for Africa to better understand the health care crisis facing youth in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Of the trip, Usher says "In 2005 I made a long-term commitment to remain involved in the rebuilding efforts of the Gulf Coast. This trip is about celebrating the progress made, to celebrate organizations like Beau Rivage, City Year, Visions of Hope and Children's Hospital that stay diligent to the work of rebuilding, but it's also an opportunity to recognize that there is still much work to be done.”

Usher's New Look foundation, was established to help create avenues for young people to enter the business side of sports and entertainment- both complex multi-billion dollar industries filled with opportunity. In July 2005, the vision was expanded as New Look realigned its core purpose to include providing leadership, guidance and support to help youth become not only successful, but leaders in their careers, their communities and as world citizens. New Look kids have described the unique opportunity like an "American Idol meets the "Apprentice. The vision is to equip them with the knowledge it takes to be successful . . . To expose them to the best of the best in the business aspects of these industries with the desire to give them the chance to gain new perspectives, new insights and inspiration- a New Look.

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For More Information:
Mary Cracchiolo-Spain, Beau Rivage
mcracchiolo@beaurivage.com
(228) 386-7134