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Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Awards 76 Nonprofit Organizations Quality of Life Grants

The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation announced it is has awarded 76 Quality of Life Grants totaling $450,000 to nonprofit organizations throughout the United States. Awarded twice annually, the Quality of Life Grants Program rewards nonprofit organizations who reflect the Reeve Foundation's mission to empower individuals living with paralysis. Since the Quality of Life Grants Program's inception, almost 2,000 grants totaling over $15.2 million have been awarded.

Portlight Strategies of Johns Island, South Carolina was honored with a $25,000 grant which will help to support the replenishment of a mobile emergency disaster relief storage trailer that transports and provides accessible shelter, essential medical supplies and durable medical equipment to individuals living with paralysis and their families in the event of weather catastrophe. Funded with a previous Quality of Life grant to Portlight Strategies, the trailer has helped families up and down the East Coast of the United States after hurricanes and flooding and in Texas after wildfires. Portlight will also work to educate emergency shelter providers to make them more accessible to people with mobility impairments.

Shriners Hospital for Children in Chicago, Illinois, was awarded a $17,000 grant to support a project using the SmartWheel system to help prevent and eliminate pain and repetitive strain injury during prolonged use of wheelchairs in pediatric patients living with spinal cord injuries.

"The Quality of Life Grants Program allows us to connect with other nonprofit organizations to enable individuals living with paralysis and their families to enhance their daily livelihood," said Peter T. Wilderotter, president and CEO of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. "Promoting as much freedom and independence as possible for individuals living with paralysis is a tenet of our mission. The Quality of Life Grants do just that."

The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Quality of Life grants program was conceived by the late Dana Reeve to address the myriad needs of children and adults with paralysis and other mobility impairments and their families. Grants support critical life-enhancing and life-changing initiatives that improve physical and emotional health and increase independence. Funded projects offer a diversity of services and approaches: improving access; providing education and job training; sponsoring organized sporting activities; and much more. Quality of Life grants are funded through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Award #1U59DD000838).

About the Reeve Foundation
The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation is dedicated to curing spinal cord injury by funding innovative research, and improving the quality of life for people living with paralysis through grants, information and advocacy. For more information, and to review the entire list of Quality of Life grant recipients, please visit our website at www.ChristopherReeve.org or call 800-225-0292.