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Facebook Digg Delicious October 8, 2009 | Living

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An event focused on National Disability Awareness Month is scheduled from 1-3 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Club Hood ballroom. All are encouraged to attend.

This year is the 19th anniversary of the enactment of the historic Americans with Disabilities Act. Signed into law on July 26, 1990, this landmark legislation established a clear mandate against discrimination on the basis of disability so that people with disabilities would have an equal opportunity to achieve the American dream.

Major David Underwood, Jr., of the U.S. Army Student Detachment at Fort Jackson, S.C., will be the guest speaker.

Severely wounded in Iraq by an improvised explosive device explosion in January 2008, Underwood lost his left arm several inches below the elbow and suffered traumatic injuries to both legs. In April 2008, he was among the Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride group that then-President George W. Bush welcomed at the White House. The Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride is a rehabilitative cycling program and advocacy group for injured military personnel.

Underwood was again with the Soldier Ride group when they visited the White House this year. President Barack Obama said the Soldiers prove that life after injury is not about what you can’t do, “it’s about what you can do.”

“Expectation + Opportunity = Full Participation” is the official theme for the 2009 National Disability Employment Awareness Month. It is intended to urge employers, as they seek to fill positions, to embrace the richness of America’s diversity by considering the talents of all workers, including workers with disabilities.

In 1945, Congressional law designated the first week in October as “National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week.” President Harry S. Truman designated the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities to carry out the law. Congress changed the name to “National Disability Employment Awareness Month” in 1988.

The responsibility for leading the nationwide recognition was transferred to the newly created Labor Department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy in 2001.