I think when I received the diagnosis there in the doctor's office, we knew that we were at high risk to possibly have a child with Down syndrome, But I had a pediatrician who just did a great job.

He really put our minds at ease and first thing he said is, "Don't Google anything."

He just delivered the news really matter of factly, but also in a way that was, you know, "Hey, life is gonna move on.

You're gonna do the things you normally thought you would do.

It might look a little bit different, but you've got a completely healthy baby and just enjoy."

[Michael] Funding for this program comes from the Mike and Gillian Goodrich Foundation, with additional support from the American Advertising Federation of Roanoke.

Their profit comes not from the thing they sell, but the good they do.

Our nation has more than 1.5 million nonprofits that employ one out of 10 Americans, providing services that otherwise go unfulfilled, keeping our community connected when all else fails.

But nonprofits often lack the tools to properly promote themselves, to inspire more donors and volunteers and clients to their cause.

That's where I come in.

I've been in the nonprofit world for nearly 20 years.

I connect nonprofits with marketing professionals who donate their time and expertise so that, at the end of the day, these life-giving organizations can do more, do better, by creating more, that's right, "Buzz."

(energetic music) (energetic music continues) Down Syndrome Alabama is a nonprofit organization that serves the state of Alabama for people who have Down syndrome, their families, and their communities.

Our focus is education, advocacy, and connections, and we hope to build an Alabama that is a brighter, more inclusive place.

Having a disability is A okay.

You're just focused on what you're doing and not getting distracted about what others are doing.

It's really special.

We're all friends and we're all family.

I think Grace has met a lot of amazing people and so many people have gotten to know how amazing this girl is right here.

When a baby is born with Down syndrome, or when a family has a prenatal diagnosis, there are many ways that they can get in touch with us.

Sometimes a social worker from a hospital will call.

Sometimes the family will reach out.

We really love Down Syndrome Alabama because they wanted to build a relationship with every parent, every sibling, and everybody that's involved in our family.

Ryan has a great personality, so we're ready to see what else Down Syndrome Alabama has to offer.

We've just always reached for that.

We've always thought it's our world, we have a place in it.

When I spoke to fear and doubt in the initial moments, Down Syndrome Alabama really provided all the resources I needed to dive in.

I cannot imagine my life or this journey without the support of Down Syndrome Alabama.

Down syndrome is the most common chromosomal abnormality that we see in the world.

It is where there are three chromosome 21s that are in each of the cells.

That extra chromosome can affect health issues, it can affect physical issues, it can affect cognitive issues, and there's a wide range of those in everyone, and not everyone with Down syndrome is a carbon copy or cookie cutter, as I would like to say.

A long time ago, many children that were considered to have intellectual disability, or have differences were often isolated and they were put into different residential placements because they thought that there was no way that they could learn.

They would not be able to thrive in a regular community.

37 years ago, life was more secluded.

Before that, any student was special needs typically segregated by population and they were, you know, maybe put away from the general population.

Teachers still had to have special training to be able to work with them.

As late as the 1970s, people were still told by physicians when their baby was born that they could leave them at the hospital and to go home and that they would take care of everything else, and for a while I thought that was a wives tale.

I had heard that that happened, and in September I was fortunate enough to meet the founding family of National Down syndrome Society, the Goodwins.

Their daughter, Carson, was born in 1978 and the doctor came in and said that.

And when Ms. Goodwin told me that, I felt my heart drop and I just gave her a big hug and I said, "Thank you."

When Beth was first born, the emotions just run an entire gamut.

You know, you go from elation at having a new family member, to fear, to curiosity about what comes next and how to be the best parent that you can be and I was told, you know, my heart would be broken because she'd never be invited to a birthday party, but that wasn't true, she was always included.

Over time, we did see a shift where people were like, "We want to have them not in an institution, but recognize what are the things that we can do."

And that shift happened and we really noticed that there were a lot of children that were able to do really well and even thrive in the regular community with just some additional supports.

Like I said, the big push in education was for inclusion.

It was understanding that our children can be educated in classroom settings where they are with their peers, the typically developing peers.

We were just on the cusp of learning that everybody benefits from being together in an inclusive society.

We all benefit, those who are setting the example and those who are learning.

[Michael] What do you like to do in school, outside of school?

Okay, so in school, I love working hard.

I love taking notes on my schoolwork, and I love being with friends, eating with friends.

And then outside of school I love walking with my dog and I love playing my laptop, doing all those kind of things.

[Michael] You also like to be a cheerleader it sounds like.

I did tryouts and I made the cheer team, and then now I'm on basketball cheer team, which I have this on.

I have my Vestavia uniform on.

I will say BK's journey with cheer, she was in middle school and a bunch of her friends came and said, "Hey, BK's gonna try out for cheer."

And I was like, "No, she's not.

We don't do cheer.

Like I don't think we can do that."

I mean, it's a competitive sport, it's real deal.

At the end, the coach was like, "You know, judges are probably gonna be like, 'Not real sure this is gonna be what we think it is,' but if I don't find a spot, I will not have a single cheerleader on the squad.

Like they will all be like, 'Out, done.'"

So that's when the Spirit Girl position at Liberty Park Middle School kind of evolved and so it just has become an every year thing.

It's been awesome, really awesome experience for her.

[Michael] Sounds like it's been an awesome experience for everyone who's connections with her.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, she brings a smile to everyone's face that comes in contact.

She's a light in the room, that's for sure.

And a lot of people just love to watch her cheer too because she gets into it, quite into it.

You like to dance, don't you?

-I love my mother.

-We love you.

[Michael] Within days of our interview with Down syndrome of Alabama's Brantley Kate Moellinger, the joy-filled high school cheerleader was diagnosed with leukemia.

The illness is not uncommon for individuals with Down syndrome who are 10 to 30 times more likely to suffer from it than children without Down syndrome.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Brantley Kate and we dedicate this episode to her and all in the Down syndrome community affected by this disease.

Well, I think in Alabama specifically, we have a long way to go as far as there's still a lot of misinformation out there.

I think that even some of the doctors who deliver the news, they're really using outdated information and they're approaching families in a way that doesn't allow them to kind of think about the future in a positive way.

I have always been working with children with complicated medical issues, but also developmental issues.

As a developmental pediatrician, I see kids that have autism, ADHD, and what you recognize is that there are a lot of children that are not being heard.

I think when I received the diagnosis there in the doctor's office, you know, 'cause I already kinda had maybe the idea in the back of my brain, it wasn't a total surprise.

I had a pediatrician who just did a great job.

I mean, he really put our minds at ease and first thing he said is, "Don't Google anything.

Don't look up information, just enjoy having a baby."

He just delivered the news really matter of factly, but also in a way that was, you know, "Hey, life is gonna move on.

You're gonna do the things you normally thought you would do.

It might look a little bit different, but let's don't focus on that.

You've gotta completely healthy baby and just enjoy."

I hope that individuals will understand that a child with Down syndrome is just a child with Down syndrome.

One kid is one kid.

One person is one individual.

We need to recognize that every child or every individual has their own set of strengths and areas of growth that they have.

I wish that people will not make assumptions of what they think that Down syndrome is, where they think, "Oh, there must be happy kids and they smile all the time."

The variety of personalities in children with Down syndrome than you do see with every single other person that's there.

I talked to a mom who has a daughter that's about six years older than Vaughn.

She said, "Don't ever let anybody put him in a box labeled Down syndrome."

You know, I thought, "Gosh, that's kind of a funny thing to say to somebody whose kid's still in the hospital," but you know, the farther I've gotten in this journey, boy, was she right.

We're all different in some form of fashion.

Individuals who have Down syndrome are just like everybody else.

They have aspiration, they have dreams in life.

They want to work just like we all do.

What do you wanna do for work?

Do you wanna own something?

I don't know.

I don't know, Mom.

-Okay, that's okay.

-That's fine.

I'm still trying to figure it out for myself.

-Do you wanna go to college?

-College!

Yep, he does want to go to college.

My wife moved out of the house.

There's no one around.

No cooking, not nothing, just me and college.

I think I would say for other kids with disabilities, I want them to think I'm funny.

That's because I want them to know that I like jokes.

They could hang out, eat and see what looks like for their future.

So you wanna be an example to others?

Mm-hmm.

The funny statistic, or funny thing is that everybody with Down syndrome is just like every other child, have emotions just like every other child.

They're not happy-go-lucky all the time.

She's a very typical common teenager.

[Michael] Are you not happy-go-lucky all the time?

I mean, now I'm not concerned about you.

Oh, you're not concerned about me?

As I am of him.

As you are, yep.

She's very much a daddy's girl.

(laughing) (gentle music) Vaughn is 16, like he said, he was born on March 30th, 2009.

We lived in Montgomery, Alabama, at the time.

Obviously had two sons.

I had no prenatal indicators that Vaughn was gonna be born with Down syndrome, so very normal pregnancy, just like my others.

I actually never found out the sex of any of my children prior to having them, so everything was a big surprise on March 30th.

You know, we were all, my family was there, my parents had come in, the boys were in there, my in-laws, so we had a kind of a room full of people.

The OB/GYN, Dr. Corey came back in and just, you know, asked if he could talk to Matt and I and I was like, "Sure."

He said, "I'm having some tests run, but, you know, my preliminary, being an OB/GYN for this long, shows that Vaughn has some indications that he may have Trisomy 21 or Down syndrome.

And honestly, the first words that came out of my mouth were, "I thought that happened to old people."

And so I just was, I was very uneducated about Down syndrome in general and my husband, of course was like, "We are the perfect parents for this."

And I was like, "Okay, we can do this."

(bright music) (families chattering) We are at Overton Park.

We are having a new parent gathering.

This is for parents pre-birth all the way through kindergarten for them to get together and have an opportunity to get to know each other and socialize and help to create the community that we're fostering with Down Syndrome Alabama.

I think it's important for us to build a community, and I think that that community goes beyond just people with Down syndrome having peers with Down syndrome.

That goes for your parents.

Your parents need to be able to connect with each other because they're gonna have questions and they're going to be the best resource.

Well, I do think that it can be daunting when you get that diagnosis, and I think that having organizations like Down Syndrome Alabama brings that community together.

This is our three, almost four-year-old daughter Evelyn.

She was born in 2021 and really still in the midst of COVID, and so when we got her diagnosis, there wasn't a lot going on.

We learned about Down Syndrome Alabama so we got to know a lot of people through the internet and through phone calls and through social media, especially as we were going through her heart surgery and early intervention and learning all the new things about Down syndrome, but what Down Syndrome Alabama has done for us is create community.

I remember Down Syndrome Alabama reaching out probably while I was in the hospital right after she was born, and just having someone to connect to to help me get plugged into resources and other families in the state of Alabama, especially in Birmingham.

Down syndrome of Alabama has been a great resource for us.

You know, there was a lot of uncertainty, not only with it being your first child, but also learning the diagnosis of having Down syndrome and everything that comes with that, so I think just the resources that have been shared with medical doctors and therapy facilities, as well as just the support system to be able to talk about what you're going through has been great.

-Oh yeah, when it's your own- -Absolutely.

And you just know how culture is and things like that, it's quite scary, so we just wanna make sure that we're growing her and leading her and just teaching her.

Whether it's your fourth child or your first child, it's just, it's a crazy, life-altering, wonderful diagnosis, but sometimes it takes a minute to get to the latter part of that, and having the support has meant the world to us and like really helped us through the pregnancy and after he was born, so yeah.

One of my favorite stories is about how families talk about when they learn about the diagnosis of Down syndrome and it is if they in their life had planned like, "We're gonna go to Paris, that's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna go to Paris, we're gonna have all of these great experiences.

We've gotten books about Paris," and then while they're on the plane, they realize, wait, we're going to Holland instead, and it's not that Holland's bad, it's just different and not expected.

BK was my second child.

I delivered her not knowing she had Down syndrome, but I'd worked with a lot of those kids so I was well aware she did when I first saw her.

You know, I had a lot of doubts in my mind, like what does this mean?

There's a lot of fear.

You kind of go through a grieving process where you thought you had a kid that's very different.

We found out I was 14 weeks pregnant and he had cystic fibroma, which is like extra fluid behind the neck, and at the ultrasound they said, this is typically indicative of a chromosomal abnormality.

At that point it was, it was pretty hard few weeks, I would say.

All of a sudden our life flashed before our eyes, the life we had thought we would have and the child we thought we would have, and you know, it was pretty life-altering, and eventually we got to the place where we were like, we just wanna be grateful for a child.

Down Syndrome Alabama really provided all the resources I needed to dive in.

I'm one of those that's like, "I need to know everything."

Now, in the space that I am, which is like such a blessing because my personal and professional lives just kind of intertwined.

A lot of our kids with Down syndrome have congenital heart defects so it gives me the opportunity to speak to those families where I once was.

It's really about learning and embracing some of the differences that are there and seeing how that brings a certain richness to your life that you did not expect before.

You had a wonderful experience.

Paris would've been great.

Holland is just as great.

I can't imagine not being in this place, you know?

You look back too and you wouldn't change it for anything.

-Yeah.

-I'm thinking to myself, like how foolish was I to have thought those thoughts or to battle those emotions, but those emotions are real and you have to process it, but looking back, you know, we wouldn't change anything.

We love this little guy.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

He is the best.

I started becoming involved with Down Syndrome Alabama back in 2013 and that was when my twins were born.

I have one twin who has Down syndrome, and one twin who does not have Down syndrome.

I taught for 26 years in Alabama Public Schools teaching high school seniors, and when I realized that my 25 years was approaching, things were stale, I was stale, and I needed something fresh, but I also didn't think that school administration was going to be what my family needed, and so I started searching and this job came available and my husband said, "I think you ought to apply."

And I said, "I don't think so.

I think it needs to be someone from the outside."

One Saturday I woke up after kind of a rough day in the classroom and I said, "I think I'm gonna apply for that job."

And even when I sent my cover letter, I stated, "I don't think I'm the person for this job, however, I'm applying for it."

And I gave my reasons why because if I had the training and the professional background to run a school, surely I could run an organization and educate just on a different platform.

And so having a son with Down syndrome, while that helps I think drive my passion, I am a professional leading this organization as opposed to a mom.

[Michael] Why is an organization like Down syndrome of Alabama necessary?

Why aren't we already taking care of all of our citizens, regardless of their abilities or disabilities?

That is a very good question.

Why aren't we already taking care of everybody?

I think sometimes it is a matter, that's what advocacy does for us.

It is a matter of making sure that people understand.

We are advocating for the entire Down syndrome community.

It's not a single person.

It is the whole picture.

And while some parents may come to the organization and say, "I want to do X because this is gonna benefit my child right now," and that's great, but how will it benefit other children now and in the future?

I think we have some really good policymakers, they're just unaware of the needs, and so with Down Syndrome Alabama, if we can be that voice that brings information to those policymakers, that kinda shows some of the discrepancies in areas where a simple policy change, either at the local level, the state level, even federal level can really have a lifelong impact for individuals with disabilities.

For example, Beth has a boyfriend.

You wanna tell him about Matthew?

Yeah, I have a boyfriend name's Matthew.

I've been dating here for 11 years.

You think you want to get married one day?

I hope so.

But that's a very complicated situation because most people don't understand that when two people who want to get married but they receive benefits and get married, instead of bringing both of their benefit monies to the marriage, they end up with a 25% reduction just for being married.

And then at the state level, two of the bills that I was involved in I guess a couple years ago, were Exton's Law.

What we discovered were individuals with intellectual disabilities in particular, when they're put on an organ transplant list, that system allowed those individuals to be placed at the bottom of the transplant list and never really move up.

Honestly, most parents would be unaware that that was even happening, and then the Colby Act, which is now a law, that was introduced to give another option besides guardianship as individuals with disabilities come adults because guardianship is very limited.

It's right for some people, but not for everyone, and so now in Alabama, we have a supported decision-making option as George grows older, and what that means, is that he would've a team of people that would support him in his decisions as an adult, which is not different than what you and I do.

I mean, if I'm making a big financial decision, I would reach out to a financial person.

So you build a team around the person with a disability so that they know who to go to to ask for support or to help them make the bigger life decisions.

[Kathy] There's still a lot of growth to go, but we have come a long way.

We have come from babies being born and sort of hidden away to being not only out in the open, but expected to be part of the world and be part of the community.

I'm Laura Davis and I'm Grace's mom and just so proud of Grace.

She's 22 and she graduated from Auburn in May.

She came and got a job at Gigi's and it's been a wonderful place.

They have been so supportive of Grace all these years.

One of my goals in my role at Down Syndrome Alabama is to teach society what our Down syndrome community is about.

The more public we can be, the more people see us, and the more people learn about us and from us.

One of my personal philosophies is see us, know us, love us because if you see us, then you're gonna get to know us, and then I promise that you're gonna love us.

My name's David Potter.

I'm one of the supervisors here.

Wilson's been working with us for a long time now.

He is a great employee for us.

A lot of times he's the only person out here working on the dining room, serving the guests 'cause he is so relatable for all the guests.

The guests just love him and he's so fun to work with.

He jokes around with us all the time, like we've found him hiding in a trash can before just to surprise us, and so he is just a lot of fun to work with.

Grace started shopping with us when her parents moved back to Birmingham.

We opened our store way back in 2004.

It's just been kind of a relationship ever since, seeing her grow up, going through high school, doing cheerleading, graduating from the Auburn Eagles program, and coming back to work with us.

I enjoy working here because I get a lot of clothes from here.

How many friends have you met here?

A lot.

I have loved Grace working with us so much ever since she started.

I mean, we've just clicked really well.

She's just been amazing.

She works super, super hard.

By the end of the day, we're all super tired, so I'm just really glad she's a part of our team.

One of our big programs is called CHAMPS.

CHAMPS is an acronym.

Would you like to tell 'em what it stands for?

[Beth] CH means Community Heroes.

[Kathy] What is A for?

-Advocate.

-Advocate.

-M is for... -Motivate.

-P is for... -Persevere.

Persevere, which means... You speak up and never give up.

Never give up.

And then S stands for... -Service.

-Service, so that we give back to the community and we do all sorts of things.

What kind of things do we do?

[Beth] We go to movies, go out to eat, or have some fun with friends.

It's a circle of friends and that's wonderful.

I thought that we would be isolated, we're not.

We've met so many wonderful families and we've gotten some of our best friends from being part of Down Syndrome Alabama.

Yeah.

It's really special.

From the high school girls and college girls and Sally, our manager, to everyone else that works here, we're all friends and we're all family and I think Grace has met a lot of amazing people, and so many people have gotten to know how amazing this girl is right here.

She is honestly one of the biggest lights in my life.

She maybe doesn't even know it, but she brings so much joy to me.

Some days are tough and I think everybody has bad days, but it's never a bad day when I'm working with Grace.

I love you.

I love you so much.

I enjoy being a part of Down Syndrome Alabama and the Down syndrome community because I feel like I am a natural-born cheerleader.

[Michael] Tell me what your future look like.

I wanna work as the audio visual, but (indistinct).

I think I wanna do other things like being part of the football team, being a part of other things.

I have always loved to cheer people on to the finish line and to help shine light on them, and that is one of the things that I think I enjoy the most about my job is getting to do that.

I wanna be a gymnast again.

I wanna be a nurse like my mom, and then I wanna be a doctor like my dad, and then I wanna be a veterinarian, and then a chiropractor, and then I wanna have kids.

Yeah, I told her she's got a lot of work to do and she better get real busy at school.

Yeah.

I'm cheering everyone on, whether it's a new parent, whether it is a student who is participating in an athletic event, whether it is a student who is going to a post-secondary school, or getting their job, or having a boyfriend or girlfriend.

I am all about cheering them on to be their best possible person and human being.

(gentle music) (fans clapping) Way to go!

(gentle music continues) (upbeat jazzy music)