Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 89.djvu/1357

 PROCLAMATION 4394—SEPT. 15, 1975 to observe the week of October 12, 1975, as National School Lunch Week and to give special attention to activities which will focus on good nutrition for our young people. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundredth. GERALD R. FORD

Proclamation 4394

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September 15, 1975

National Employ the Handicapped Week, 1975

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation America offers a promise that all its people who are willing and qualified to work shall have an equal opportunity to do so. Elimination of many discriminatory barriers has moved us closer toward the fulfillment of that promise. For our handicapped citizens, however, much more needs to be done. The barriers facing the handicapped are not so much their own disabilities, but the attitudes of the non-handicapped toward their disabilities. Those of us who are not handicapped think of what we could not do if we lost an arm or a leg, lost our sight or our voice, or were disabled in some other way. We often forget that the handicapped are thinking of what they can do. We must learn to think like them—positively! We must look not at what they cannot do, but at what they can do. We must look beyond the disability to the positive ability. The disabled can perform a wide range of jobs with skill and efficiency. They do not need special jobs. They need the opportunity to compete, to prove that they can perform. The Congress has recognized our special responsibility to the handicapped and, by a joint resolution approved August 11, 1945, as amended (36 U.S.C. 155), has asked the President to issue a suitable proclamation.

89 STAT. 1297

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