Awards and Grants

New Jersey GASP has earned congratulations and thanks from Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Senator Lautenberg, Governor Florio, media, legislators, health professionals, organizations, businesses, and citizens. Specifically, the New Jersey Department of Health, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, the American Lung Association of New Jersey, and the American Cancer Society, New Jersey, have given awards to New Jersey GASP. In December, 2009, The Center for Nonprofits selected NJ GASP as part of “The New Jersey Non-Profit Story Collection” at its 25th anniversary celebration.

New Jersey GASP’s founders, officers, and staff have won numerous awards for their work in combating the tobacco problem.

President of New Jersey GASP, Dr. Fred Jacobs, Esq., received the 2008 C. Everett Koop Award, for his outstanding commitment to tobacco control, especially the New Jersey Smokefree Air Act, which was enacted during his tenure as the NJ Commissioner of Health and Senior Services.

Executive Director Karen Blumenfeld, Esq., was given the Award for Excellence in Tobacco Prevention and Control by the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services in March, 1996. That same year she won the Presidential Merit Award of the New Jersey Local Boards of Health Association.

Former Vice President Susan Goldman Kapoor was given the first New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services Susan Lenox Goldman Award for Excellence in Tobacco Control in July 2002. The award was named in her honor.

Retired Executive Director Regina Carlson was given the Citizen’s Award by The Academy of Medicine of New Jersey in 1998. In 1997 she was given the ASH 30th Anniversary Award by Action on Smoking and Health, Washington, D.C. In November, 1997 she was named the Advocate of the Year in Women’s Health by the National Council on Women’s Health. She won the Presidential Merit Award of the New Jersey Local Boards of Health Association in 1996 and was also recognized as a New Jersey Woman of Achievement by Douglass College, Rutgers University, and the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1996. She won the Sparkplug Award (for igniting the energy of others) from the Advocacy Institute, Washington, D.C. in 1989 and was honored by Stop Teenage Addiction to Tobacco as a “founder of the movement to prevent tobacco industry access to youth” in 1993. She was recognized for outstanding efforts toward creating smokefree communities by the Essex and Union County ASSIST Coalition in 1995, and was given the Bertha Clark Memorial Clean Air Award in 1986. In 1984 she was given the key to the city of Omaha. She has also won awards from the Sussex, Warren, and Morris Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, the Essex-Union Communities Against Tobacco Coalition (2002), and the Sussex Communities Against Tobacco (2002).

Dr. John Slade, New Jersey GASP Vice President from 1986 until his death in 2002, internationally recognized as a key tobacco-industry opponent, won the President’s Award from the New Jersey Public Health Association, was the youngest recipient of the Osborne Award of the New Jersey Health Officer’s Association, and was the recipient of the Goethe Challenge Trophy of the German Medical Association in 1995.

Current and Historical Grants

New Jersey Department of Health/ U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The F.M. Kirby Foundation

Alan Kligerman

The Kligerman Foundation

Hyde and Watson Foundation

NJ Breathes Coalition (through the Medical Society of New Jersey)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Institute for Health Policy Studies of the University of California School of Medicine

Wallace Jerome Foundation

Prudential Insurance Company

Communications Workers of America Local 1037)

American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (a project of the National Cancer Institute, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, and the American Cancer Society, New Jersey Division)

Addressing Tobacco Project of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

American Cancer Society

American Lung Association

American Lung Association of New Jersey