CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A northwest suburban organization continues to grow as it provides free developmental services to people with Down syndrome.
Nancy Gianni is Chief Belief Officer with Gigi’s Playhouse, an organization she started a year after her daughter, Gigi, was born in 2002 with Down syndrome. Gianni said when Gigi was born, people offered her condolences instead of congratulations.
“Seventeen years ago when Gigi was born, there was a lot of negativity surrounding the diagnosis," Gianni said. "I didn’t know she was going to have Down syndrome. The medical community took good care of me, but they also made me feel like life as I knew it was over.”
She became determined to make a good life for Gigi and others, and that is the core of what Gigi’s Playhouse is all about.
“For Gigi to sing that national anthem, (it) took her years," her mother said. "She memorized the words in a week but for her to actually be able to articulate and have diction where everybody can understand what she was saying has taken her probably the last nine years.”