What we did for World Down Syndrome Day 2012

Over a week ago, March 21, 2012, we celebrated World Down Syndrome Day, and what a celebration it was!

About 3 weeks before that day I thought about how we could celebrate, and I came up with the idea of making ribbons and sending them out to people to wear.  I thought that maybe 20-30 people would want to be a part of it, and wouldn't that be great!  Well, I need to set higher expectations because I got requests for over 100 ribbons!!  What an incredible labor of love it was!  All we asked in return was for people to send a picture of them wearing their ribbon...and I was moved to tears when they started coming in!

From coast to coast and from the north to the south people wore their ribbons and I was told of so many incredible stories that they were able to share about spreading awareness about Down Syndrome and our fighting irishman!

So, here you are.....

We sincerely mean it when we say "Thank You".   I was so moved when I checked Facebook on that morning and people had already posted and reposted and shared about it being World Down Syndrome Day, you all beat me to the punch!

I remember being on the phone with my best friend Becky and just crying with tears of joy because my "little" project just took on a life of it's own!

Later that day, Brendan and I went into Rory's 1st grade classroom to talk about Down Syndrome, and to hopefully get the message across that just because someone is different it doesn't make them any less of a person.  Well, didn't they get it!  They sat and they listened, they ask questions, they participated in an exercise that we did, and then at the end they all rushed up to Brendan to give him a High 5!  Didn't he just think he was the King of the moment.

As we were getting ready to leave, Rory's teacher asked them what they had learned about Down Syndrome.  The smallest little girl in the class shot her hand up and answered "Just because Brendan looks a little bit different and it takes him a lot longer to learn how to do things, he's a kid just like us."  Well, cue the water works!  They are such a great bunch of kids, and we are so thankfully that we got to spend an hour with them!

It's not the best picture, but it was one of the best moments!

We also gave the some pretty "sweet" thank you gifts for letting us come in..blue and yellow M&M's!

In addition to people wearing their ribbons and spreading awareness, if included some information if people wanted to make a monetary donation.  The organization that we recommended was the Down Syndrome Research and Treatment Foundation.  I had heard about them from our friends at the Down Syndrome Guild in Kansas City.  They offer webinars on research that they are doing to develop treatments that will greatly improve the cognition abilities of people with Down Syndrome.  (When I participated in my first webinar I really wished that I had paid more attention in my science classes!) 

On March 21, the foundation had 3 incredible sponsors step up match every donation 3:1, (did you get the 3-2-1 reference?)  They were so amazed by the amount of donations that came in on that day that they even more generously offered to continue the match for one more day!  At the end, the grand total for donations that were made and matched was over $425,000!!!  WOW!!!

Can you think of a better way to celebrate the day?  Well, save your ribbons and get your friends and family signed up for more, because we have 354 days to figure it out!