Below is a news release for the 2009 National Conference and Exhibition (NCE) of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Awards will be presented to the winners of the AAP’s National Children’s Art Contest Saturday, Oct. 17 (ET), at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.

For Release: Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009
9 a.m. (ET)

WASHINGTON, DC – This year’s American Academy of Pediatrics National Children’s Art Contest drew hundreds of entries from a record 40 states and the District of Columbia.  

With the theme of “Protecting Children From Tobacco Smoke,” the 2009 contest is an initiative of the Academy’s Julius B. Richmond Center, which is supported by the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute and dedicated to the elimination of children’s exposure to tobacco and secondhand smoke.

This was the Academy’s fifth annual art contest and the first to include an age group for older children. 

Winners of the three age groups will each receive a $500 cash prize – with matching amounts for their schools – at the AAP’s National Conference and Exhibition in Washington, DC, on October 17, in front of an audience of several thousand pediatricians from across the world.

Second-place winners, and their schools, each receive $250. The winners’ artwork will be on display at the Washington Convention Center during the meeting and posted to the AAP’s Web site at aap.org .

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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 60,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.