Prevention Magazine & ABC News Now announce the winners in the PICTURE OF HEALTH contest

New York, NY, June 2, 2008 – Prevention Magazine editor-in-chief Liz Vaccariello named five winners in the Prevention/ABC News NOW “PICTURE OF HEALTH” contest this morning on ABC-TV’s Good Morning America:  Eileen Friedman, Becky Griggs, Colleen Kelley, MaryKay Mullally and Maria Ruoff.

Each of the five winners will receive $10,000 – a $5,000 prize as well as $5,000 for her charity of choice.

Of particular interest to NEADS, is MaryKay Mullally, of San Diego, CA who has chosen to donate her $5,000 to NEADS, dogs for deaf and disabled Americans, located in Princeton, MA. 

MaryKay founded Step Up For Life, a beginner’s half-marathon training program for women, after recognizing that ‘there must be more to her life’, after working 12 – 14 hour days managing a software development team.  Her love of running inspired her to create Step Up For Life to help other women to achieve their health and fitness goals in a self development program.  What started as a ‘project’ turned into a career.   Since 2004 Step Up For Life has led hundreds of women across the finish line and has now expanded into a wellness coaching practice. 

MaryKay came across a NEADS recipient who had lost her dog while on vacation in Hawaii in 2004 and was inspired to help the disabled woman to raise the funds to replace her dog more quickly than she would have through her own fund raising efforts. MaryKay was deeply touched by the woman’s loss and the importance of the canine and human partnership that helped this woman and deaf and disabled Americans to gain a measure of independence and social acceptance.  She raised $10,000 which in conjunction with the woman’s fundraising was enough to replace her dog and provide two other women with dogs.

NEADS and a future assistance dog team are deeply grateful to MaryKay for her caring and compassionate contribution.

NEADS is a non-profit organization that works to provide social dogs, walker dogs, service dogs and hearing dogs for those in need, including war Veterans under our Canines for Combat Veteran’s Program.  NEADS receives no state or federal funding and relies solely on contributions from individuals like MaryKay Mullally, service organizations, small businesses, corporations, foundations and communities who come together to underwrite the cost of training these  teams.

MaryKay Mullally, Step Up For Life can be reached at: http://www.stepupforlife.com/index.html - 858-449-0756 or 858-720-0480

NEADS, dogs for deaf and disabled Americans can be reached at: www.neads.org or 978-422-9064.