A full weekend with NDSS in the Big Apple

Many conferences I fly in, exhibit, fly out. This NYC Buddy Walk was not that kind of weekend, and I’m so glad!

This was year three for me at the National Down Syndrome Society's NYC Buddy Walk, and it might be the best one yet — this time, I actually stayed to experience the walk in Central Park. In prior years, I flew in, worked, and flew out, squeezing in a tiny bit of the touristy stuff in between. This year, I started the trip at Nemours Children's Health on Wednesday (and that's a story for another blog!), so my adventure really started with an Amtrak trip from Wilmington, Delaware, to Manhattan on Thursday morning. Fun fact about Amy: I live in central Ohio on 6 acres, 20 minutes from any major grocery store, so just getting around a city by train and on foot is its own kind of excitement on these trips!

Thursday was a day of exploration — I walked from Times Square to Chelsea Market and trusted one of the greeters there to point me to the best food in the place. She didn't steer me wrong with an amazing shrimp sandwich creation and some refreshing gelato.

On Thursday evening, the NDSS crew is always hard at work sorting and organizing the shipping containers for the weekend festivities, so I hopped in and sorted shirts with them before catching up over dinner. (I did have to step out of dinner for a bit to accept my Door Dashed TV for Friday — and I'm still baffled this is a thing.) After dinner, we made a fun run to the M&M's store, of course. It always amazes me that stores are open in Times Square after 9pm, and that the night is obviously just getting started as I'm heading to bed!

Friday kicked off bright and early for us, hauling the TV, stands, banner, table cover, and cords from floor 45 to the mezzanine on 9 in just two trips! A quick setup took us into T-shirt pickup, a little registration and merch-selling chaos, and a whole lot of ARWell being played with families while they waited. ARWell is kind of the entertainment during the whole pickup process. Families are arriving to the city, settling in to the hotel, meeting each other, and checking out all there is to see, while most of the kids gravitate to the game, of course! One of the NDSS staffers has a tween with Down syndrome, and last year, he spent a lot of time with me playing ARWell. This year, he came down after breakfast to take over my job!! Bradley was running the show, and I was just there to support him — he told the kids how it worked, set them up, and cheered them on! There was a lot of iWall, Pickleball, and Obstacle Course, and the occasional group Grover's Dance Party too. We met lots of new faces, and also reunited with some friends made in years past, which was a nice surprise. One of our team’s programmers, Devin, lives close enough to hop on a train and come to work with me, so he got to experience kids playing his games in real life too! What a cool way for us to get real-time feedback. This is how we keep making our games even better for our customers and patients! The super-fast setup and easy game start make ARWell ideal for demos in situations like this — people walk up, we tell them their body is the game controller, and they start to play. It's fun to see their reactions when people see themselves on the screen, playing, dancing, exercising, being silly. Parents are drawn to our app because kids are so engaged, and it’s screen time that has a real purpose. In a population with many individuals who don’t love to exercise, making movement fun is key. After a long day playing, we tore down around 6:30, and I helped the NDSS merch area pack up in a hurry to get things in the truck for the move to Central Park.

Two kids having a blast trying out ARWell during registration and shirt pickup at NYC Buddy Walk.

Saturday started early (Buddy Walk mornings always do), with 500 people with Down syndrome making their mark on the big screens in Father Duffy Square before 9:30am. (Not many other people are out and about this early in Times Square!) So many incredible families are there celebrating, filling the big red steps and all around them, and it's just something you can't really describe. The joy on the faces of the kids as they see themselves on that big screen, the proud families who love them so hard and fight for them so fiercely every day — what a privilege to be a part of this! Hugs, huge smiles, some tears, cheering for people I don't even know, celebrating with them. It's so full of big feelings!

This year, I also stayed for the walk in Central Park. And I didn't just hang out — I got to be the handler for Clifford the Big Red Dog at the walk. (Must have been all that Animal Assisted Therapy experience that landed me the gig?! Big Red doesn't just let anyone hold his leash.) Clifford and I had an absolute blast out there — lots of tail wags, high fives, and photos. We even hopped in and got Clifford in a couple's wedding photos! (Who doesn't want a wedding photo with Clifford?!) The walk is full of entertainment on stage, crafts, stories, photo ops, food, and music - hours of celebrating in a beautiful park.

Augment Therapy’s Director of Clinical Success, Amy Pratt, jumping for joy with Clifford the Big Red Dog in Central Park!

Three years into this event, I've made some genuinely amazing connections through NDSS, and I'm so glad I finally got to stick around for the whole thing this year. Worth noting: I did miss an exciting finish at Carter's high school soccer game back home — apparently it ended in a red card for the other team, and I am still not over missing that, but Clifford's a pretty solid consolation prize.

The Augment Therapy crew was busy doing what we do best all weekend: getting families moving. Watching so many kids play and celebrate together was a really good reminder of why we continue to build our products to be accessible to everyone. Since 1995, the Buddy Walk has been the most recognized public awareness event for the Down syndrome community in the country, and days like this are exactly why. Advocacy doesn't always have to be loud — sometimes it's just thousands of people showing up, walking together, and making sure the world sees exactly what NDSS's mission is all about: creating a world where individuals with Down syndrome thrive. And the numbers back up what it felt like on the ground: over 500 faces from 50 states and a dozen countries, 2,500+ attendees, and over $400,000 raised to support NDSS's mission of creating a world where individuals with Down syndrome thrive.

One for the books, for sure, and Augment Therapy is proud to be a part of it!

Until the next adventure...