Before my daughter was born with Down syndrome, I had this ignorant idea that people with Down syndrome were not beautiful. I was so wrong!
My girls are days away from celebrating the 100th day of school. Each grade does something different to celebrate this day. In Kindergarten, the project is to make a display of 100 things. Think cheerios, sequence, crayons, cotton balls, and anything else that you can glue on a board to make a 100 display.
My youngest daughter has Down syndrome, and I knew this would be a great opportunity to work on fine motor skills, gluing 100 beads onto cardboard. But then I thought about the fact that there are only two kids with Down syndrome in her school, and well, I knew I could do something about that!
So I decided that we were going to show 100 beautiful faces of people who have Down syndrome. I asked my friends on Facebook if they would be willing to share their pictures, and the picture came!
My Facebook wall was inundated with beautiful faces of people with Down syndrome. I was moved by the response,crying looking at the many pictures, thinking about how beautiful our kids are, and feeling thankful that I get to be a part of the Down syndrome community.
I had 176 pictures to chose from! It was hard to chose which ones to use, because I wanted to show them all!
And I thought you would like to see the 100 beautiful faces showcased in the display. Beautiful kids and adults that carry in their genetic makeup an extra 21st chromosome.
And if you have a photo to share, I would love to see it!
Editor’s note: All photos in this post were used with permission. Taking any of these photos without permission is illegal and against copyright laws.
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Looks like the pictures are broken…. is there a privacy issue, or a server issue?
(love this and linking to it from my blog http://matir-asurim.blogspot.com/2014/02/beauty.html)
Galit, my website was “moved” this evening and I think that messed up some of the pictures, it should be fixed! Thanks for the heads up!
Ellen,
This was so touching – wonderful to see so many beautiful people on Nichole’s display. I’ll bet the kids at school really liked it, too!
~Robyn
Yes, and the display is making it to our school district office!
Beautiful beyond words! Our great buddy Dennis Ribby is in your project. He is the 70 year old in the blue tshirt. Laurie Benefiel sent you his picture. I teared up when I saw your project. We miss him dearly and it was great to see this reminder of him. Thanks for making me smile! Also really neat to see him at 70 years old with all of the younger kids. Great job!
I loved his smiling face! It is an honor to have him included in the project!
The top picture has been appropriated by like farmers and used as a scam meme on Facebook. Just thought you might like to know. You might want to consider protecting your pictures.
Yes, parents are aware of this. All pictures are protected under copyright laws, taking the pictures is illegal. Unfortunately there is not much that can be done online when people steal photos.