Down Syndrome

I have two siblings with Down syndrome and sometimes it can be difficult, but overall they make life way great.

There was this one summer growing up that I got to go volunteer at a summer camp, basically, for people with mental disabilities, and so I got partnered up with somebody that had Down syndrome, and I feel like the best thing that I learned is that I wasn't really trying to teach this person anything. If anything, I had so much to learn from them. They have such a bright perspective and happy, happy just aura about them, that they just love life and love laughing and love just making fun memories and just having a good time. So I think it just really taught me to not take life too seriously and to just have fun and to be with people that matter most to me, and that was my personal experience.

My personal experience with interacting with those who have Down syndrome is when I was in high school I was able to help coach a basketball team for those who had disabilities and a lot of the players had Down syndrome and one of my absolute favorite things about being able to interact with this group is just simply the joy that they were able to spread and I feel like so often we can kind of box in the capabilities that we feel that people with disabilities have and we're often so wrong. I was able to hear about the jobs that people were working, the familiar relationships they were able to grow, personal relationships they were able to grow and so just being so supportive of the things that people with Down syndrome want to do, love and support, it was just very meaningful to me.