On July 27, NCHPAD accepted the first Best Effective Practices Award at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Conference, "Navigating Our Future: Aligning Strategies and Science," in Washington, DC. The award recognizes individuals or organizations who make significant contributions to public health practice at the community, state, and national levels. Dr. Rimmer's acceptance speech follows:

Dr. Cordero, Dr. Stroup, and Nominating Committee:

"Thank you for this wonderful honor. I am accepting this award on behalf of a dedicated staff who has worked very hard for the past five years in helping remove barriers to participation to physical activity, recreation, and health promotion for the millions of people with disabilities who would like to be engaged in one of my life's greatest pleasures. Unfortunately, many people with disabilities continue to find roadblocks to participation in healthful activity and subsequently increase their risk for various secondary conditions, comorbidities, and even death, by engaging in sedentary behaviors.

To Amy Rauworth and Bill Schiller, my associate directors, Jennifer Gray, Cheeri Ong and Sheila Swann-Guerrero, information specialists, Barth Riley, Edward Wang and Kiyoshi Yamaki, our research analysts, Bernadette Hill and Valerie Lawson, our field-based project coordinators, Rosa Pico our Business Manager, and to our major partners, The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago's Center for Health and Fitness and the National Center on Accessibility, thank you for recognizing that your work in NCHPAD is extremely important to accomplishing the mission. As our staff knows so well, our work is not a job but a passion. And we will not stop until every child, adult, and senior has equal access to one of life's greatest pleasures and most important health-enhancing behavior, physical activity.

I would also like to thank our first project officer who is also here today, Mr. Joe Smith, who provided the intuition and guidance to move NCHPAD in the right direction. Joe is a wonderful man who has dedicated over 40 years of his life to CDC's mission and will be deeply missed. Thank you, Joe.

I would like to close with a true story from Dr. Wayne Dyer's new book, The Power of Intention, in which he uses an example of physical activity in describing the importance of belonging, one of the most important aspects of human existence. It's a touching story that demonstrates how a simple act of acceptance can make such a tremendous difference in one child's life and in one father's life."

Read the entire column at http://www.ncpad.org/228/1516/2004-08~Issue~~NCPAD~Receives~National~Award~-~Makes~
a~Difference.