Pressing on and giving your #bestofall | Notes from Nancy

We are excited to have Nancy Gianni, Chief Belief officer & GiGi’s mom, on the blog today!  Like all of us Nancy has hard days, gets tired and thinks about stepping back…..but then she is reminded why she works as hard as she does.  Her passion, determination and fire have helped to create a network of people who are changing their communities and the world. Every day this circle grows.  Now lets read what Nancy has to say about the hard parts of this journey and what keeps her pressing on.

Sometimes we need to remember why we do what we do. It seems whenever I thought I couldn’t go on I would always get sucked back in!

Three years in to the GiGi’s journey, I faced a particularly difficult time. It seemed that the more successful we were, the worse other groups acted toward us. We were all volunteers and the families we were helping and the media covering our growth and success didn’t listen to the haters, which was great. We were a success to everybody and kept getting more and more families and more and more positive media coverage, and I think that’s why the other groups resented us. They didn’t realize that we were all going to grow from this! Thankfully, the negativity didn’t affect our parents or kids, but I took it personally.  Everyone else was able to focus on the overwhelming positives and take the criticism with a grain of salt, but I couldn’t shake it off. I think it was so personal to me because I was killing myself doing this.
I’ve spoken before about the difficulties we had with some of the other Down syndrome nonprofits out there and their unwillingness to collaborate with us. Within that group, there were a lot of haters who kept saying that I was going to turn the tables on people and start charging for services. Or they were saying that GiGi’s wasn’t an inclusive place! How ridiculous! Charging for our services or excluding people has never been part of our plan! I couldn’t understand why people would say something like that. I couldn’t wrap my head around why they were trying to tear us down when all we wanted to do was encourage a message of universal acceptance FOR ALL.  It blew my mind.
At a particularly difficult time, the haters and negativity had pushed me too far. I was burned out and exhausted. I just wanted to be a mom again, like I had been when Franco was born. I had always thought I’d raise my kids and volunteer and do other things; it had never been my plan to spend all my hours volunteering and dedicate my life to something outside the home.  Due to my brother’s schizophrenia diagnosis, I had always wanted to help others. I wanted to find a way for him and others with mental illness to be accepted in this world. Yet when GiGi was born, I shifted my focus to Down syndrome with a global message of acceptance for all. Founding and setting up GiGi’s has allowed me to channel my energy into something outside of my family. Now I had hit a wall, pushing back against all the negativity.

The early days of GiGi’s. Everyone helped, everyone gave their all. Even my babies!

So I met with Father Fred, the same priest who had held GiGi during a Sunday sermon the day after we opened the first Playhouse location. He’s been our priest for a while, and I often turn to him when I need some guidance. You can imagine that for a “don’t ask for permission; ask for forgiveness” person like me, seeking guidance and advice from someone doesn’t always come naturally.  I was at my wit’s end and wasn’t sure what to do, so I turned to Father Fred.
I explained the situation to him and told him what I was dealing with. “I’m not sure I can do this anymore,” I said. “I’m proud of what we’ve done, but there are so many haters out there and I’m not sure how to deal with it. People said this would fail, and now that it hasn’t, it feels like people are mad at me because it’s successful.” I took a deep breath and shook my head. “I just don’t think I can do this anymore.”
Now, Father Fred is a kind man. He’s a good listener and extremely warm-hearted. He’s also very compassionate. Part of the reason I went to him for counsel is because I knew that he’d listen, but I also expected him to support me. In my mind, I think I’d already decided to quit, and, essentially, I wanted his blessing. Something about a priest telling me that I was making the right decision would, I felt, clear my conscience and allow me to move on. I expected him to say something like, “You did your best and it’s important to know when to walk away.” But that’s not what happened.

“Nancy,” Father Fred said, looking me directly in the eye. “You can’t quit.”

I stared at him in surprise. “I . . . can’t?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, you can’t quit. This is a ministry,” he said. “What you’re doing is a ministry. And it has to continue.”
Ministry? I thought. That was crazy! I work hard and I play hard, but the concept of “ministry” was so foreign to me. That wasn’t what we’d set out to do, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it; I couldn’t think of GiGi’s that way. But to see someone I respected framing what we were doing at GiGi’s as a ministry helped me to change my viewpoint. A shift in perspective was just what I needed, even if it was shocking to me. I sighed, deflated. The priest was telling me I had to keep going.  How do you say no to a priest? “It does?” I asked.
Father Fred took a deep breath. “What you’re doing,” he said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. I have never seen a change like what’s happening with GiGi’s.” He considered for a second and almost seemed to be in awe. “You can’t quit; you have to keep it going.”
So that was it. I’d gone to a priest for counsel, hoping that he’d tell me I’d done enough, and instead he encouraged me to do more. I’m certainly far from a perfect Catholic, but I can’t say no to a priest!

So I pushed on. I kept going.

Of course, since then, I’ve realized that it wasn’t really Father Fred I was afraid of letting down. It was the kids and families that had adopted the Playhouse as a second home. It was the parents who felt they had support for the first time and the children who had a voice.  Most of all, I was afraid of letting down GiGi. She was so young at the time, and she wouldn’t have been able to tell me that she needed me to keep pushing forward. So Father Fred said it for her. Thank God he did.
The struggles didn’t stop, of course. Just because a priest gives you his blessing, the world doesn’t take a step back, let you catch your breath, and then barrel forward. The world keeps spinning. Suddenly, I was faced with a lot of issues that I’d never considered before. When a typical business grows as fast as GiGi’s Playhouse did, people want to buy it. You read about bidding wars in the Wall Street Journal all the time as corporate giants duke it out to throw billions of dollars around to buy each other out. The difference is that with a nonprofit, things just get that much harder. Especially because we were totally volunteer run at that time and I wanted to keep it that was for as long as I could.
As hard as it got, I couldn’t leave. You know that line from The Godfather? “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” It felt like that sometimes.
One night, I was at the Playhouse late, probably around 10:30 p.m. I had brought the girls in earlier while waiting for Paul to get home from work and they’d trashed the place. They always knew that if I was doing Playhouse stuff, they had free reign of the Playhouse, and they’d go wild! As a result, I usually didn’t get to deal with mail, financial concerns, or paperwork for the Playhouse until late at night most days. This particular night, I cleaned up as best I could, made sure the Playhouse wasn’t a total disaster for the next day, and sat down to open the mail. I was exhausted and beat, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and a big glass of wine, but I still had work to do. It was the kind of night that made me think, I’m not sure if I can do this any more.
I sorted the mail, tossed out the junk, and turned my attention to the few letters and packages that had come in. I found an enveloped, turned it over, and didn’t recognize the return address. Slitting the envelope open, a check fell out. I opened the card. “This is for all the babies who won’t live long enough and get to come and play at GiGi’s,” the note said. I read on and learned that it was from a mother whose baby had just died. She had learned about GiGi’s and had dreamed of bringing her child to us; she’d never gotten the chance. I picked up the check and saw that it was for $1,000.
I sat by myself and cried. If I had been looking for another reason why I couldn’t quit, this was it. I couldn’t have found a better one. I was struggling, yes. I was especially struggling with the feeling that I was losing my social life—the life of friends and socializing that I’d loved—to spend all my time working at GiGi’s, to spend all my time changing the world. I was having a difficult time finding a balance in my life, and I was beginning to wonder if it was even possible. I could feel my old, fun life slipping away. But I looked at the letter from this mother again and I realized I had a choice to make. I could continue this mission or I could go back to my more carefree life with fewer responsibilities.
One of the things I’d always striven for, even while raising my kids, was to find some purpose in my life outside of my home and my own family. And looking down at the letter from this mother who had only wanted a place for her child, I realized that this was my purpose. Just like that, another miracle had pulled me back in.

educate.inspire.believe.