TransMedia Group Buzz: Stand Among Friend's Receives The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation

Monday, August 6, 2012

Stand Among Friend's Receives The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation – Quality of Life Grant.

Twenty years ago, Shawn Friedkin had it all- he was newly married, excited to start a family, and had a promising future in a successful financial career. Two weeks before his 28th birthday, Shawn’s world came crashing down when he was involved in a horrific car crash which left him paralyzed from the chest down. After learning he’d be wheelchair ridden for the rest of his life, Shawn could have given up and spiraled down a destructive path of self-pity, losing any motivation to go forward.

Instead, he decided his new disability was not going to define him as a person. As he began to rebuild his life, he realized there were few resources for people in his situation. Frustrated, he founded Stand Among Friends (www.standamongfriends.org), a 501(c)3 nonprofit and opened the name-sake disability center headquartered on Boca Raton’s Florida Atlantic University’s campus.

Stand Among Friends (SAF) stands apart from many other programs of its kind in that it not only raises money and awareness, but also places its members in a wide range of careers, from hourly employment to high-paid executive positions, allowing people with disabilities to live a life without limits. Shawn created and directed the program, which provides services to over 600 people with disabilities annually, having placed over 440 people with disabilities into productive employment in the past 42 months.

With Christopher Reeve

Just this month, Stand Among Friends became the proud recipient of The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Quality of Life Grant; receiving $5,500 to support its career-focused Assistive Technology Initiative for college students and adults living with disabilities. The program uses Assistive Technology as a key component of a larger professional placement program called Careerability, which includes vocational evaluation, pre-placement training, internships, on-the-job training, placement, job coaching and long term success mentoring.

o The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation – Quality of Life Grant (2012)

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