Welcome to the new blog site for the Northeast Mississippi Down Syndrome Society. It is our prayer that through this blog site that many of you will learn more about Down syndrome and how you can help our organization raise awareness of Down syndrome in your communities. Our children are a gift from our Creator and we hope that you will be blessed by them as they continue to grow and become contributors in society.
Michelle and I are counting down the days for our very first Down syndrome conference, to be held in Washington DC on Wednesday through Saturday of next week. It is sposored by Affiliates in Action based out of Kansas City, KS. Here is our schedule for the coming days. On Wednesday morning at 6:51 a.m., we will board a flight to Washington from the Tupelo airport. We will arrive in Washington at 11:30. That afternoon, we will attend the opening ceremonies of the conference and sit through a meeting that will cover the work that the legistature is doing on behalf of the thousands of individuals who are living with Down syndrome. This meeting is to prepare us for our day on Capitol Hill the next day.
On Thursday, we will commute over to Capitol Hill for a day of meetings and fun. At 8:30, we will attend a legislative breakfast where we will meet various legislators in our nation's capitol. This breakfast reception is to honor the work they are doing for our cause. Beginning at 10 a.m., various meetings will begin around Capitol Hill to advocate for individuals living with Down syndrome. Michelle and I have meetings scheduled with U.S. Representative Travis Childers, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker and U.S. Senator Thad Cochran. We look forward to sitting down with them to discuss the needs and expectations we have as a Down syndrome community and how they can help us meet them.
Following the meetings at the Capitol building, we will return to our hotel, The Doubletree to mix and mingle with other conference attendees. There is a AIA Idol contest that night for attendees. There will be a karaoke contest with opportunities to win some very nice prizes. I can't gurantee that we will be participants in the contest, but we look forward to watching the others though as they sing their way into our hearts.
On Friday, there will be multiple worshops going on throughout the day covering numerour topics as they relate to Down syndrome. Michelle and I look forward to these workshops. They will cover topics such as education, sibling issues, support group issues like creating and maintaining an efficient board of directors, publicity, outreach, advocacy, fundraisers, etc. Other topics include workforce transitioning, Buddy Walk training, leadership training, healthcare, among others. These workshops will continue on Saturday morning. At noon on Saturday, we will attend the closing ceremonies of the 2009 AIA Conference.
Our flight leaves Washington at 3:30 on Saturday and we will head home. Following a 24 hour layover in Detroit, MI where we will get in a short visit with Michelle's grandparents, we will return to Tupelo Sunday night around 8:30 p.m. It is our intentions to carry the laptop and update this blog throughout the conference, so check back here to see what we are doing in DC. We would also encourage any questions or comments you may have for us too. Especially before the conference, we would like to know what issues you are most interested in so that we can try to get them covered at the conference. Until next Wednesday, thank you once again for getting involved in a great cause, that of raising awareness of Down syndrome in Northeast Mississippi.
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