BHMS to Celebrate World Down Syndrome Day
The Bunker Hill Middle School students and staff will be dancing in the hallways for three minutes and 21 seconds on Thursday, March 21, 2019, in celebration of World Down Syndrome Day, beginning at 9:45 a.m. The date, 3-21, represents Trisomy 21, the medical term for Down syndrome, which the third replication of the 21st chromosome.
As part of the celebration, students and staff will be sporting crazy socks, another awareness initiative that symbolically reminds people that, though those with Down Syndrome are different, they are still beautiful and wonderful. Many of the socks that the BHMS staff will be sporting were crafted by students in Briana DiBlasio’s classes. Proceeds from the socks sales will be donated to KIIDS (Knowledge and Information about Individuals with Down Syndrome), a non-profit-organization based in South Jersey.
“Our Bunker Hill Middle School community is pleased to join the festivities surrounding World Down Syndrome Day,” said BHMS principal Mike D’Ostilio, whose daughter, Allyson, a first-grader at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, has Down Syndrome. “This is one more way for us to celebrate diversity and inclusion in our schools.”