LANCASTER, Pa. — GiGi's Playhouse, an international network of Down Syndrome Achievement Centers, is urging acceptance of all through a new worldwide event on June 5.
The GiGiFIT Acceptance Challenge "aims to unite one million people to make a physical and social movement for acceptance."
When Nancy Gianni found out that her daughter GiGi was diagnosed with Down Syndrome shortly after her birth, she got to work. She founded GiGi’s Playhouse in the hopes of giving those with Down Syndrome a place to feel safe. GiGi's Playhouse provides "free life-changing therapeutic and educational programs for all ages."
The GiGiFIT Acceptance Challenge encourages participants to get out and move regardless of race, sexual orientation, ability, or anything else. Participants can walk, swim, run, play sports - anything to get the body moving. In doing so, they show that they accept others just as they are.
The event is named after the popular GiGiFIT programs that combine physical therapy with fitness so that individuals with Down Syndrome can build strength, endurance, power, joint stability, balance, and movement control.
To learn more about the challenge and to sign up, visit this link.