2025 Gala: Celebrations and Award Recipients

Celebrations and Awards made our 2025 Gala so meaningful.

The theme of this years gala was “Building our Future is not Black and White”. Supporting and Celebrating our community is not a one size fits all approach. While we provide consistency with programming and events, we also make adjustments that will allow each participant to succeed. Being in the middle of a capital campaign to build our forever home also adds an entirely new layer to all we are doing! The amazing Down syndrome community, volunteers, staff and supporters are at the heart of what makes our future so bright (and colorful).

Advocate and Family Stories:

The evening was packed with fun and inspiration!

We heard from Annie Mulligan, who won gold and silver medals in snowshoeing at the Special Olympics games in Turin, Italy. She not only shared an inspiring message about her how work and the amazing time she had, she also brought her medals, uniform and a special presentation about her olympic experience!

Advocates, Jen Strauss and Maya Greengus also shared their perspectives on what make GiGi’s and the Down syndrome community so special.

Family and Advocate testimonials were shared by 6 different families and showcased the impact the programs and true friendships formed at GiGi’s makes!

Our friends from Arts for All Wisconsin brought the ConfiDancers dance group to kick off our evening with another amazing performance.

Celebrating the volunteers and supporters!

Our volunteers, advocates, and community supporters are the fuel to the free programming we’re able to provide at GiGi’s. This year we presented 5 different awards to Playhouse and Community members who have made substantial contributions and lasting impacts, not only in the past year, but since our opening 9 years ago.

2025 Generation G Volunteer Award – Maya Greengus

Generation G is a conscious decision to be better every day; it is a movement that symbolizes change and a push for acceptance.

This year, our Generation G Volunteer Award recognizes an individual who is always advocating. She is a true believer, and her passion for creating change is inspiring.  

The Generation G Volunteer Award goes to Maya Greengus, for your effort and dedication to educating our community about the importance of acceptance.  

2025 Community Impact Award – Park Bank

We are so lucky to have many community partners that truly believe in our mission. We wanted to recognize one of our partners who continually goes above and beyond with their support of our entire Playhouse community. This organization lives “Generation G” by demonstrating how to be accepting, generous and kind.

This organization shows up for us at events, helps us spread awareness and supports us in so many ways. They have also been a Friends of GiGi’s sponsor from the beginning.  
The 2025 Community Impact Award goes to Park Bank. 

2025 Believer Award – Brian and Kimberly Arndt

Believe: one of our 5 Core Values here at GiGi’s Playhouse.  Believe in ourselves, believe in our mission, believe in each other, and believe in the history that brought us here. 

This award is going to someone who has Believed since the beginning of GiGi’s Playhouse Madison.   

They have shared their time, talents and treasures with our community to keep our Playhouse moving forward and they serve as volunteers, on top of participating in programming with their family. 

We are awarding our Believer Award to Brian and Kim Arndt for their substantial impact and on-going support to our Playhouse community. 

2025 Advocacy Award – Asha Shukla

At GiGi’s Playhouse, our advocates are the people, organizations and communities that endlessly support and uplift our Playhouse mission: to change the way the world views Down syndrome. Advocates are passionate, resilient and selfless. They keep our Playhouse progressive; embodying the change we need to push ‘acceptance for all’. 

This year’s recipient rallied her community to make a positive change at her school and we are overjoyed to present our ‘Advocacy Award’ to Asha Shukla – in recognition of her bravery and ability to use her strong voice to advocate.

2025 Volunteer of the Year Award – Amy Ulrich

Volunteers are the heart of GiGi’s Playhouse. They make the time to serve, support, and empower our Playhouse and participants to succeed. This Volunteer has logged over 800 hours at GiGi’s and plays an active role in the behind-the-scenes fundraising that keep us up and running. In our 9 years, we have received over $580,000 in grants and this person is a HUGE reason why we’ve had this success. 

Our 2025 Volunteer of the Year award recipient is Amy Ulrich, for your unwavering commitment to and belief in our Playhouse community. 

Thank you all for your contributions over the years.

2025 Employee of the Year – Courtney Gamer, Anne Ernst, Nanette Mogensen

For the first time ever, we’re presenting the GiGi’s Madison Employee of the Year Award!

This award goes to a team member who goes above and beyond every single day — someone who does more than “just their job,” who greets every family with empathy and open arms, who overdelivers on the quality of our programming, and who helps keep the Playhouse firing on all cylinders.

And… well… I couldn’t pick just one.

So the 2025 Employee of the Year Award is a three-way tie!

Please join me in congratulating Courtney, Anne, and Nanette!

These three embody what it means to live the mission of GiGi’s every single day. They are the heart behind the magic you see — and I couldn’t be prouder to call them my team.

Special Thanks

A special thanks to Mackenzie Davis for being our Emcee, DJ Blackstreet Boy for making the dance party so epic, Next Wave Visuals for capturing the fun, Intentional Purpose Events for all their work in bringing this event to life, our army of day of volunteers who shared their time during set up, clean up and running the program, our Gala Committee for their months of work behind the scenes, the amazing event sponsors and in-kind donors for their substantial fundraising contributions and the Concourse Hotel for helping make our evening so special. Click the links to see a listing of all our sponsors in our Gala program and to see the memories from the evening

Together, we will change the way the world views Down syndrome and to send a global message of acceptance for all.