{"id":18672,"date":"2020-08-03T13:07:59","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T18:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/?p=18672"},"modified":"2024-09-05T11:54:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T16:54:20","slug":"carmella-milly-avas-county-commissioner-district-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/uncategorized\/carmella-milly-avas-county-commissioner-district-6","title":{"rendered":"Meet Carmella \u2013 Milly and Ava\u2019s Mom, plus Running for Hennepin County Commissioner \u2013 District 6 &#8211; Volunteer Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-18673 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-1-300x227.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-1-300x227.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-1-768x582.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-1.jpg 917w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-2-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-18676 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-2-1-184x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"184\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-2-1-184x300.jpg 184w, https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-2-1.jpg 408w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 184px) 100vw, 184px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-3-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-18677 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-3-1-168x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"168\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-3-1-168x300.jpg 168w, https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/files\/2020\/08\/Carmella-3-1.jpg 368w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 168px) 100vw, 168px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Carmella visited GiGi\u2019s Playhouse \u2013 Twin Cities for the first time at the end of February this year. She visited our playhouse in St. Louis Park, with her daughters Milly, age 4, and Ava, age 6. Carmella and her daughters had an amazing Saturday morning at our playhouse. Milly immediately felt right at home with all our games, dolls, and toys. Carmella was truly inspired by what GiGi\u2019s offered for free for our entire Down syndrome community. She also had the opportunity to meet one of our self-advocates, Abby, who was preparing to lead Young Athletes that morning.\u00a0 (Check out our blog <a href=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/uncategorized\/abby-and-nell-inspiring-self-advocates\">here<\/a> that we wrote about Abby and Nell in early February of this year.) Carmella was also inspired by Abby \u2013 as she saw what was possible for Milly\u2019s future, her daughter also a person with Down syndrome. The moment was totally empowering to Carmella and her entire family.<\/p>\n<p>Less than a month afterwards, COVID hit our planet \u2013 and Carmella was busy working on arrangements for her children during this time, as well as making the decision to run for Hennepin County Commissioner for District 6. You can check out her website: <a href=\"https:\/\/carmelladoby.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HERE<\/a> One weekend, we came across Carmella in her debate, and realized she\u2019s one of our GiGi\u2019s moms, and she&#8217;s running for this position. We were excited to reach back out and find out how her and her family are doing during this time.<\/p>\n<p>After a phone call checking in, we also discovered that Carmella would be interested in volunteering to be part of the newly formed Racial Equity Advisory Team, where we are thrilled to work together on ways we can strive for more access and inclusiveness, with a current emphasis on our BIPOC community, for all our GiGi\u2019s Twin Cities programming and events. We are excited for what all the team members, including Carmella with her amazing life experiences, will bring to helping us continue to improve and grow in this important area for our organization.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you Carmella, and your family, for being part of our GiGi\u2019s Playhouse Twin Cities community! We are honored that you are lending your voice helping us to make change. We look forward to what the future will bring for all of us. We are also so proud of what you have already accomplished in your run for Hennepin County Commissioner for District 6. Best of luck at primaries on August 11th!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carmella visited GiGi\u2019s Playhouse \u2013 Twin Cities for the first time at the end of February this year. She visited our playhouse in St. Louis Park, with her daughters Milly, age 4, and Ava, age 6. Carmella and her daughters had an amazing Saturday morning at our playhouse. Milly immediately felt right at home with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[960,925,205],"class_list":["post-18672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gigiplayhousetc","tag-leadership","tag-strongertogether"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/twincities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}