 |
Sign the Able to Choose pledge! |
| Title: Able to Choose Athlete Participates in Monument 10K |
| Description March 27, 2009 –Richmond, VA -- Matthew Deans, an athlete with a disability and spokesperson for the Able to Choose campaign, will compete in the 10th Anniversary Ukrop’s Monument Avenue 10k on Saturday, March 28. Competing at blistering speeds, Deans uses a hand cycle powered by his arms rather than his legs, and has been known to set course records. At 16, Deans was in a car accident, resulting in an incomplete spinal cord injury. Today, Deans uses a combination of athleticism and good old fashioned competiveness as he takes to his hand cycle, travels nationally with the Sportable Richmond Rim Riders wheelchair basketball team, and completes his Masters Degree at Virginia Commonwealth University. Thousands of spectators are anticipated to celebrate Deans and the 35,000 race participants, some with and without disabilities, in the 10k, voted “the best road race in the southeast.” The mission of the Able to Choose campaign is to demonstrate that people with disabilities can and do live successfully in the community when individually appropriate supports are available. Approaching disability rights and advocacy in the kind of tactful manner that he plans out and conquers a race course, Deans sees Virginia as primed and ready for change. Virginia, he says, has a unique opportunity to reform its historical focus on large, state institutions and fully transition to a true community-based system of support for its citizens with disabilities. “We’ve made some progress here in Virginia…but Virginia is not at the forefront of disability rights,” he explains. Through events like the Monument 10K and educational opportunities around Virginia, Deans, and other residents with and without disabilities, are changing individual attitudes and actions, and public policy, to make all aspects of community life inclusive and welcoming to people with disabilities. Deans explains that many citizens with disabilities require support in order to access their basic human right to live and work in the community. He points out that for decades, studies have proven community based employment and living provides a better quality of life than institutional settings, while at the same time representing a cost savings to tax payers. Dean’s story is one of many personal stories of Virginians with disabilities living in the community – and enjoying the same rights as others to work, play, win, and lose. |
Steve Fetrow, like all of us, has experienced his share of highs and lows. However, this former professional athlete -- and business leader -- says that it’s what happens in between that really matters. “It’s the everyday experiences that define a person,” he explains.
>> LEARN MORE
Virginia Still Is Playing Catch-Up in Disability-Rights Arena
"Each Virginian with a disability deserve to enjoy the same benefits of society and freedoms of every day life that Virginians without disabilities enjoy."
- Gov. Tim Kaine
>> MORE
College Bound 2009
College Bound 2009 Registration deadline May 31, 2009
>> MORE
| Able to Choose A public awareness campaign funded in part by Virginia Board for People with Disabilities |
|
Toll Free Voice/TTY: 800-846-4464 Info@VBPD.virginia.gov Copyright 2009 |
