Paralyzed Veteran Dares Talk Show Host Ellen to Dance with Him -- and It's All for a Great Cause

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A paralyzed veteran from Woodward, OK, is daring TV talk show host Ellen DeGeneres to dance with him on her show to raise awareness about veterans with disabilities.

U.S. Army veteran Bill Lawson, who is National President of Paralyzed Veterans of America, will be in Los Angeles at the end of April as he completes a month-long nationwide tour to focus public attention on the issues facing veterans and their families. His hope is to "bust some moves" with the TV icon when he's in LA. Lawson's dance dare video can be viewed at www.pva.org/vetdaresellen. The video can be tweeted using #VetDaresEllen.

"I am a huge fan of the show and the support Ellen has shown for our military heroes and veterans. She has dared everyone to dance in public, and like millions of folks I made a video to take her dare — and I'm now returning the dare to Ellen to dance with me on her show. More people need to know that there are no barriers on the dance floor, nor should there be in life, for people with disabilities and those of us who use a wheelchair every day," Lawson said.

April marks Paralyzed Veterans Awareness Month, which highlights the unique challenges facing veterans with spinal cord injury/dysfunction. It spotlights the work of Paralyzed Veterans of America to empower seriously wounded heroes and their families with everything they need to thrive, from quality health care to accessible housing to opportunities for job training and employment.

To learn more about Paralyzed Veterans of America, please visit www.pva.org.

About Paralyzed Veterans of America:

Paralyzed Veterans was founded by a group of seriously injured American heroes from the "Greatest Generation" of World War II. They created a nonprofit organization to meet the challenges that they faced back in the 1940s — from a medical community not ready to treat them to an inaccessible world. For more than 66 years, Paralyzed Veterans' national office and its 34 chapters across the nation have been making America a better place for all veterans and people with disabilities. (www.pva.org)

SOURCE Paralyzed Veterans of America