Alana Shepherd Receives the Georgia Center for Nonprofits 2008 Revolutions Award

May 8, 2008

Media Contact: Alison Damerow (404-350-7645)

ATLANTA - (May 8, 2008) - Shepherd Center co-founder Alana Shepherd has received the 2008 Revolutions Award for Nonprofit Leader by the Georgia Center for Nonprofits. The honor was bestowed at the 17th annual Georgia Nonprofit Summit in Atlanta at a luncheon on May 6.

Mrs. Shepherd was recognized for her work with Shepherd Center, a nationally recognized nonprofit hospital in Atlanta specializing in the treatment of spinal cord and brain injuries. She and her family founded the Center in 1975 after her son James sustained a spinal cord injury and could not find a treatment facility in the Southeast.

The Revolutions Award recognizes revolutionary leaders within Georgia’s nonprofit sector and celebrates them—while inspiring and motivating others. The award acknowledges, recognizes and honors individuals who demonstrate revolutionary leadership, create positive, transformative change within their organization or communities, and exhibit measurable, positive outcomes from this change.

A total of four Revolutions awards were given: Nonprofit Leader; Nonprofit Organization; Legendary Philanthropist; and Emerging Philanthropist. Details on the winners can be found here. 

For more than 30 years, Mrs. Shepherd has worked tirelessly in the Atlanta community to provide a world-class facility for the treatment of spinal cord and brain injuries, as well as advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities. Working with a full-time advocacy specialist, Mrs. Shepherd and her family have worked to make Georgia a more accessible state and more active in adaptive sports. Their efforts have resulted in getting lifts added to the MARTA bus system and making Hartsfield-Jackson Airport one of the country’s most accessible. In addition, the family has encouraged increased accessibility to the Georgia Dome, supported local disability leaders in their fight for the ADA, and helped to ensure that local governments rethink their position of accessibility of public buildings.

Mrs. Shepherd and James Shepherd championed the fight, despite opposition, to bring the International Paralympic Games to Atlanta and submitted a successful bid. Shepherd Center changed Olympic/Paralympic history, with the IOC decreeing that “all cities seeking to be the site of future Olympic Games must include, as part of their formal bid, plans and proposed financing for the Paralympics as well—and using the same sites and facilities.”

About Shepherd Center
Shepherd Center is a private, not-for-profit hospital devoted to the medical care and rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injury and disease, acquired brain injury, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain and other neuromuscular problems. Each year Shepherd Center admits more than 750 patients and conducts thousands of outpatient clinic visits. For more information, visit Shepherd Center online at www.shepherd.org.

About the Georgia Center for NonProfits
An all-in-one resource for and about Georgia's nonprofit sector, the Georgia Center for Nonprofits works to serve, strengthen and support nonprofit, charitable organizations statewide. The Center provides nonprofits with the resources and tools they need to be most effective; promotes partnerships between nonprofits and foundations, businesses and government to meet critical needs; and helps state and local policy-makers and the public, understand and support the work of nonprofits. More information is available online at www.gcn.org.