Disability Advocates to Receive Prestigious Leadership Award

Disability Advocates to Receive Prestigious Leadership Award

Don Dew and Lawrence Carter-Long chosen for AAPD’s Paul G. Hearne award

From AAPD (2/9/10)

WASHINGTON, DC – February 9, 2010 - The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) is pleased to announce Don Dew and Lawrence Carter-Long have been selected for AAPD’s prestigious 2010 Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award.

Dew of Hays, KS, and Carter-Long, of New York City, will be presented with their awards, which are given to emerging leaders in the national cross-disability community, at the 2010 AAPD Leadership Gala on March 10 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC. Dew and Carter-Long were chosen by a national advisory committee to receive $10,000 each to further their work in the disability community. AAPD’s 2010 Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award is supported in part by a grant from the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation.

“In a year when we are celebrating both the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 15th anniversary of AAPD, I am delighted that our National Advisory Committee has selected two individuals with the skills, vision, and track record that can help move our community forward,” said AAPD President and CEO Andrew J. Imparato. “Don Dew and Lawrence Carter-Long are helping bridge communities, educate the public and foster a dialogue that will change attitudes and improve opportunities for people with disabilities.”

Dew works through his organization, ReachOut USA, to ensure full equality for the four million Americans who have a disability and are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). ReachOut USA works to make LGBT groups more responsive to people who have disabilities and at the same time make disability groups more responsive to the LGBT community. 

“It is such an incredible honor winning the 2010 Paul G. Hearne Award, especially looking at the past winners and their accomplishments.  It is very overwhelming and humbling,” Dew said. “This award has strengthened my determination to continue to represent and serve all people with all disabilities or chronic illnesses and to obtain the goal of outreach and collaboration between the disability and LGBT communities to achieve full independence and inclusion for everyone.”

After several years spent working in the animal protection community, Lawrence Carter-Long moved over to the Disabilities Network of NYC, an organization that brings people, organizations, government and industry together to find solutions to the problems faced by New Yorkers with physical, visual and hearing disabilities, and works for full inclusion of people with disabilities into the vast civic, social and economic life of New York City, and eventually became Executive Director of the organization.
“Five years ago when I left my previous career to focus primarily on disability rights, I was determined to use the skills I'd developed to further access and inclusion for everyone. Winning AAPD's Hearne award affirms that decision, and holds me accountable to it. I am grateful -- and eager to utilize the opportunities the Hearne award provides to take my advocacy efforts to the next level,” Carter-Long said.

For more information about the event, visit www.AAPD.com.