 By Janelle LoBello Over 3,000 people participated in the online voting for our "2011 Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Faces and Places Photo Contest." Meet the Places winner and the Faces winner. And then see who the Grand Prize winner is! Places winner
 "My husband is an aspiring photographer and I've loved sports for as long as I can remember," says Kristina. "We pulled up and said, ‘I want to try this,'" explains Kristina. "They took one look at my arms and said, ‘I can see from your arms that you need to pull your own weight,' and I said ‘Okay!'" Kristina describes reaching the top of the rock wall and ringing the bell as one of the coolest feelings ever. "It was just absolutely awesome," says Kristina. "There's no better feeling, in my opinion, than accomplishment when you're trying to do something." Though most people thought she climbed the wall with the chair under her, it was just the opposite. "As I'm going up my husband hands me my chair," explains Kristina. "We thought that would totally tell the story!" Often times, Kristina is the center of her husband's photos. "Within the last few years, he has been getting into the business more," Kristina says of her husband, Jacob, who she has known since they were ten-years-old. "He's been using me as a model, luckily I don't mind!" Though Kristina knows there is a lot to conquer, she simply advises to believe in yourself. "We sometimes forget that limitations can only be put on yourself," says Kristina. "Society can think what they want, and stereotypes can exist, and physical barriers can be there, but if we believe in our own abilities then really all that is irrelevant. Just believe in yourself and know that you're the only one that gets to put those limitations on." Faces winner He sure is.  Jerry went back to work the day after being discharged from the hospital following the accident. "I have been working with the company for 32 years," says Jerry of his job in environmental health and safety for a chemical company in Atlanta, Georgia. "There is incredible support and encouragement for me. At first, everyone was falling over to help me. Now, they treat me just like everybody else. It just doesn't get any better than that." He also took up a favorite pastime of his, umpiring. "I was challenged from the guys I used to ump with to take it up again," explains Jerry, "But I said, 'They won't let me.'" This was all one of Jerry's fellow umpiring friends needed as he took this issue to the national level and inquired about it with the American Softball Association (ASA). After umpiring the first game once the ASA approved Jerry to be on the field, Georgia state attorneys had to convince county lawyers still it was his legal right to be on the field. "This started a good journey for me," says Jerry. "I have been umping from a chair for about six years now. According to the ASA, I am the only ump in the States in a wheelchair, too." Jerry took the winning photo of a player during a Round Robin Tournament game the Shepherd Center hosted with teams from Tampa and Tennessee in the summer of 2010. During an interview at the game, Jerry said to TV reporters, "There are 150 people here that can't walk anymore. They don't know what they can do, if they can do anything, or what life will be like. Whatever you wish to do, you can do it, because that is all you need. You may not do it the same way, but you can do it." Grand prize winner Christopher discovered photography after a motorcycle accident at age 16 left him living with quadriplegia. View Christopher Voelker's work. |
