(Thank you Joel for your friendship, and thank you for having the courage to be the first person to say "yes" to the AIDS Ride.) I want to thank Liberty Hill for this honor. This is the first time I've ever been acknowledged in this way. It means a great deal to me. So to everyone on the board and to Torie, thank you. I also want to thank all my friends who are here and who gave their support tonight, especially Judith Light and David Mixner (Wade McIntire) and Ignacio Valdes.

My Mom and Dad are here from Boston tonight. The first time I came to California was when I was 15, and my parents took us on a 2 week trip out west. This was pretty unheard of for a working class family in Boston in the 70s. California. It just wasn't something they did. New Hampshire and Maine were the horizon, because that was all people could afford. But my parents saved up for it, for us. On a construction worker's salary. This was their dream. To show their children places they'd never gotten a chance to see themselves when they were kids. Big places. Big things. We saw the Grand Canyon and the Rocky Mountains. I'd never seen mountains like that. I just kept staring. They were ten times the size of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. And we saw Las Vegas, and the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Hoover Dam and Hollywood. (We almost got in an accident with David Cassidy. And that was exciting.) And they took us to Disneyland. We were all in Disneyland on the 4th of July in 1976. And I'll never forget the magic of that night. First of all being in the midst of Walt Disney's fantasy. One of the great dreams of the modern age. But then there were the thousands of people gathered there that night. Perfect strangers in tears with one another, singing God Bless America. Singing for the love of their country, and feeling undeniably connected to each other. Made me think for the first time that this is the way the world ought to be -- people should be singing with each other, instead of fighting with one another. It's not enough to be just not fighting. We should be singing with one another. It was a formative experience that has become one of the underlying principles of, and strengths of, the AIDSRides and our Breast Cancer 3-Days. People cry together, struggle together, and they sing together.

I think that humans are basically dreaming creatures. That the imaginations with which we are endowed as children are the essence of who we really are. And that when that ability to dream is suffocated or trampled on -- when our imaginations are discouraged -- in those subtle, but insidious little ways. When our ideas are ridiculed. When we are made to feel silly for dreaming. That is when our spirits die.

There's nothing I hate more than when someone says to me, "Now you have to be practical about this." See, I don't believe that. There are plenty of people on the planet committed to being practical. Plenty of people holding on with a death grip to the status quo under the illusion that there's some kind of security there. Plenty of people guarding the gates to change. The world doesn't need any more practical people. Practical is covered. The world needs more dreamers. The world needs more imagination. The world needs more ideas. More attempts at the impossible. The world needs more people who will say, "No, just because it's always been done that way doesn't mean it's the way things have to continue to be done. " Einstein -- the most knowledgeable human of our time - Einstein even said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Imagine if our leaders were elected not on the basis of their positions on issues, but on the basis of their imaginations. Not on their practicality, but on the strength of their dreams. (I wasn't going to quote John Kennedy tonight, but my friend Ignacio has a bet, so I guess I will. Those words of his still ring in my ears; "This nation should dedicate itself to the goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth by the end of this decade." Where is the President saying we should go to Saturn? Where is the President saying we should set, not a reasonable goal, but an impossible goal to end the AIDS epidemic?)

Everything that inspires us. Everything that excites us. Everything that makes us go "wow." From the Empire State Building to those six spent Apollo lunar modules sitting on the surface of the moon tonight. From Disneyland to the four-minute mile. From the Emancipation Proclamation to a free South Africa - was borne out of some ridiculous, absurd human being with a dream.

This is what Liberty Hill is all about. Protecting dreamers. Dreamers are fragile. It's hard enough to admit to yourself that you have a dream. But to present it to the world -- to take it out of the safety of your heart and say, "this is my dream," that takes real courage. Because we live in a world that discourages this. When it should be embracing it. Dreamers blossom when they are around people who encourage their dreaming. Liberty Hill is a beacon to the fragile dreamers -- people who are willing to stand against the status quo and say "this needs to change," "I have an idea" "I have a vision for my community." From the people trying to start their own janitorial business to the teacher who started "Food from the Hood," to teach young inner city kids that there's no good reason why they can't launch a multi-million dollar salad dressing brand. These are the kinds of people the world needs more of. Dreams are exciting. Status quo is dull. Liberty Hill is the buffer -- the cheerleader -- standing in between the dreamers and all the practical people out there with 100 reasons why the dream can't happen - many of them right in their own neighborhood.

So to my Mom and Dad, I accept this award tonight with gratitude to you, for everything you risked and everything that you sacrificed, for everything you invested, that your kids might know the beauty of having a dream. And to Liberty Hill -- all I say is this -- there is no more important work than the work you are doing. Keep the dreamers alive. For they are the great hope of the world.