Gratitude to the Moon!

Happy New Year GiGi’s families and friends! It has been one of my lifes greatest pleasure and blessing to have been the Site Manager of our Playhouse for the past year. I have done a bit of reflecting on this past year now that we are now in 2023. I have gotten to share my story of how I found out about GiGi’s to a handful of our volunteers and families, but I thought I’d share it with our network of advocates, families, and volunteers.

Camp Sweet Camp

In my freshman year of college, I made a friend who had told me about her passion of working with individuals with Down syndrome and other developmental disabilities. She showed me pictures of her clients from a summer camp she had worked at, where she cared for adults with developmental disabilities for weeks at a time. I thought it looked incredible and sounded like a wonderful experience, but didn’t really think that it would be something I’d be interested at or even good at. In the spring of my freshman year, I ended up visiting that camp (Arrowhead Bible Camp, Brackney, PA) for a weekend retreat where I spent the first evening absolutely terrified. I was so nervous that I was going to some

how say or do the ‘wrong thing’ to the campers, so I tried to stay as incognito as possible. But, one of the campers, who was about my age, asked me to play a game of foosball with her by taking me by the hand and leading me to the table. We didn’t talk all that much, we just hit the ball back and forth to each other. I was able to relax a bit and began to simply view everyone around me as just people. A very simple concept that made me quickly become embarrassed that I had never thought that way before. The rest of the weekend went by blissfully, and I could feel that I had found a group of people who I wouldn’t just be able to say good bye to.

 A Game of Goldielocks

Fast forward, and I end up spending three summers working for Arrowhead Bible camp- one summer as a counselor, one as the music and bible teacher, and one as a program assistant. When camp started their year round programing in 2019, I began skipping Friday classes to drive the 3 hours to spend the weekend with my best friends (the campers) at camp. I had absolutely fell in love with taking care of and spending time with the individuals. It was such a special bond that never lost its magic, even when it was challenging. Once it was time for me to graduate and move onto the real world in 2020 (by the way, an awful time to be graduating college) I always joked that I wish I could be a fulltime advocate for individuals with Down syndrome. It wasn’t really a joke, more like I knew there wasn’t necessarily a profession where I would get to do such a thing (or so I thought!). So I used my shiny new degree in early education and taught for a year. At the end of the school year, I didn’t feel a tug to go back. Instead, I worked for a group home and went back to my care taking roots, thinking maybe I’d be happier. I quickly realized that working for the group home would not be long term. Teaching was too cold, and the group home was too hot. Little did I know I’d be finding something that was just right!

That Down Syndrome Place

After a few months of working for the group home, and sneaking up to camp whenever I could, I saw a FaceBook post from this place I had heard of from some of the my campers. GiGi’s Playhouse Southern Tier was hiring a Site Manager, a 15 hour a week position. I had selfishly followed the Playhouse on FaceBook just to see pictures of the friends I had made from camp, but I didn’t exactly know what the deal was about ‘that Down syndrome place’. When I saw the advertisement about the job, I thought that if it was for 30 hours I week, I would have applied for it- but I quickly forgot about it and moved on. One day a few weeks later, I was texting with my good friend, the one who had brought me to camp while we were in college, after a ROUGH shift at the group home, venting about how I just needed to pick up and move to New York and start fresh. Coincidentally, at the same time, the Programs Coordinator and Vice President of GiGi’s had also texted my friend asking if she knew of anyone who may be a good fit for the Site Manager position. Seriously, it was perfect timing.

GiGi’s had posted an updated job description and upped the Site Manager position to be 30 hours a week. I can not tell you how fast I quit my job at the group home and secured an apartment in the Southern Tier area, before I had even gotten hired. Haha! I just knew that GiGi’s Playhouse was my absolute dream job. And it has proven to be my dream job for the last year and three months!

THANK YOU!

I am with a lack of words on how grateful I am for the GiGi’s community, on the local and national level. It is a true blessing to get to be apart of a network that advocates for our individuals with Down syndrome, while providing free educational, therapeutic, and progressive programming. I have seen the most beautiful sights within the playhouse. I am so glad I found my home. THANK YOU!!!