Assume EVERYONE Can- in their own way

By now, you have likely seen this viral and impactful video from NDSS (National Down Syndrome Society). We do believe our Down syndrome community should be given a chance to do whatever they choose to do instead of having others decide that for them. This video really brings that point to light. There are also…

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Celebrating our Literacy Tutors for National Reading Month

March is National Reading Month in honor of Dr. Seuss’s Birthday – a great reason to celebrate our amazing Literacy Tutors!  Our Literacy Program uses research based progressions to help people with Down syndrome learn to read using a framework created by experts.  Although we give our tutors a framework to work from, they bring…

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A Playhouse Family’s Beautiful Story

Guest blog by Playhouse mom, Missy Miller. Life has a bigger plan for us than we know – rewind to year 2006, it was high school graduation and I had a plan. I thought I always knew what I wanted to do when I was “older” and my career path was set. I was going…

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Are You Ready to Dash?

Our third annual Dash for Down Syndrome is on April 27th at Winnequah Park in Monona. Learn more, register and donate HERE What to expect:A morning filled with community, fun and acceptance that has something for the whole family! This event is so fun because it gets the whole community involved! Last year we celebrated…

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2024 Dash for Down Syndrome Team Spotlights

Our 3rd annual Dash for Down Syndrome is on April 27th, 2024 at Winnequah Park in Monona. Everyone has their own reasons for participating so we wanted to highlight them for you. To learn more or create your own team, click HERE Scroll down to see all our spotlight teams! Team: DoubL TroubL To donate…

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Community Generosity

Our participant Matt is helping us add donor recognition leaves to our robust donor tree! Our donor tree is beautiful focal point of our Playhouse and represents the generosity of our community. Each leaf represents an individual or organization who has given $1,000 or more through life-time giving (it does not need to be a…

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Incredible Interns

As a 99% volunteer run organization, we rely on the time and talents of all our volunteers. We have so many people willing to give their time to our Playhouse community that we are consistently in the top 5% of annual volunteer hours across our entire network of 58+ Playhouse locations! This Spring session of…

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Celebrating a Best of All Moment

Celebrating a ‘Best of All’ moment is a standard practice during all our programming because our friends are ALWAYS giving their best in all they day. Here’s a reminder on what ‘Best of all’ is: https://gigisplayhouse.org/madison/best-of-all/ This week we are celebrating our GiGiFIT adult participant, Michelle. Michelle is always the biggest cheerleader for her friends…

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Adventures in Advocacy

What does it mean to be an advocate? That can depend on the individual but no matter how people choose to advocate, the ultimate goal is to publicly show support of an individual or organization’s cause. Our mission is to change the way the world views Down syndrome and bring a global message of acceptance…

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Down Syndrome Stories- Family Perspective

Guest Blog: Written by Playhouse mom Leah To most people, they will just see Everett happily eating a cracker, but this picture is over a YEAR in the making. “People with Down syndrome work twice as hard as typical people to do the same things.” Leah, Evertt’s Mom Everett has some major disadvantages when it…

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