After unexpectedly finding out that her daughter GiGi was born with Down syndrome, Nancy Gianni created a place where kids with her condition could find their potential: GiGi's Playhouse.
NBC's Kate Snow reports.
By Kate Snow and Wonbo Woo, NBC News
Follow Nancy Gianni around for a day or two and the first thing you’ll feel is tired. She walks fast. She talks fast. And she is very much on a mission.
“I want to show people the beauty and potential in our kids,” she explains. “Let people understand that they are so much more than a diagnosis.”
At the new flagship location of GiGi’s Playhouse, a 10,000 square foot “achievement center” for people with Down syndrome, Gianni greets parents and children with unbridled enthusiasm.
“Hey, Sistah!” she calls out to one student.
“Are you a star?” she asks another, pointing to the sequined star on her T-shirt.
And everyone gets a hug.
It’s a community Gianni built from the ground up, inspired by the birth of her own daughter, GiGi, now 11 years old.
Smart, self-assured and sassy (according to Gianni), GiGi loves to sing and dance and shares an office with her mom at GiGi’s Playhouse, where she writes thank you notes to donors.
Seeing the two of them together, it is hard to believe Gianni was ever afraid of her daughter’s Down syndrome. But she took her cue from her doctors. She said her obstetrician-gynecologist looked scared as he delivered the news.
“They said 'You know, we saw some soft markers of Down syndrome,' and just like at that point, like everything had stopped in my world. I don't remember anything else that they were saying.”
The nurses stopped making eye contact, she said, and it seemed as though the doctors didn't know what to say. Gianni says she was overcome with fear, but when she and her husband, Paul, brought GiGi home, things began to change.
“My other kids were so excited to see her because they didn't see her as a diagnosis. They just knew that they had a new baby sister. I wasn't going to let them see my fear,” she said. “If I was going to take this diagnosis and feel sorry for myself, or feel sorry for her, they would treat her that same way. And I didn't want that for her, and I didn't want that for our family.”
And so she started gathering information and marshaling support for what would become GiGi’s Playhouse.
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Helping those with Down syndrome reach their highest potential