A Port Republic resident will be featured on the big screen in Times Square this weekend, one of roughly 500 people with Down syndrome chosen from thousands of entries worldwide to appear in a national awareness event.
Heidi Rubinoski’s photo — taken outdoors, wearing a flower crown, by 21FIVE Photography — was one of more than 2,700 submissions the National Down Syndrome Society received this year for its annual Times Square Video Presentation. The hour-long video, drawing from children, teens and adults with Down syndrome across all 50 states and a dozen countries, will play on two Jumbotron screens above Dos Caminos restaurant in Father Duffy Square starting at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Saturday, Sept. 12, with a livestream on NDSS’s Facebook page for those who can’t be there in person. Clear Channel Outdoor donates the screen space for the presentation each year.
The video kicks off the New York City Buddy Walk, held annually at Central Park’s Naumburg Bandshell since 1995 — making it, along with the Times Square presentation, one of the longest-running fixtures on the Down syndrome community’s national calendar. It’s the flagship event of NDSS’s National Buddy Walk Program, which now includes roughly 150 walks held in communities across the country and in several countries abroad each year, raising money and awareness for Down syndrome advocacy and support.
Calvert County has its own local piece of that broader network. The Down Syndrome Association of Southern Maryland, a volunteer-led nonprofit serving Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties, holds its own Buddy Walk and year-round programming — including care packages for new families, educational workshops, and financial assistance for therapies and adaptive equipment — independent of the New York event Rubinoski’s photo will appear in.
NDSS, founded in 1979, says its work spans policy advocacy, community programming and public-perception campaigns on behalf of people with Down syndrome and their families, covering topics from education and employment to health, wellness and aging. The organization has said current priorities include expanding access to inclusive education and employment opportunities, along with pushing for more research into Alzheimer’s disease among adults with Down syndrome, who face significantly elevated risk of the condition as they age. Beyond the Times Square presentation and Buddy Walk program, NDSS also runs an annual Adult Summit and a Down Syndrome Advocacy Conference, among other events, and describes the Buddy Walk model — now roughly 150 events nationwide and abroad each year — as the world’s largest peer-to-peer fundraising and awareness program for the Down syndrome community.
Being selected for the Times Square video is competitive by design: this year’s presentation drew more than 2,700 submitted photos for roughly 500 available spots, meaning Rubinoski’s photo was chosen from a pool with roughly a 1-in-5 acceptance rate. Past NYC Buddy Walk events have drawn celebrity emcees and guest appearances — last year’s, for example, featured CBS New York anchor Chris Wragge as emcee alongside actors from the Down syndrome community — as NDSS works to raise the event’s national visibility each year.
More information on the Sept. 12 Times Square presentation, the New York City Buddy Walk, and the broader Buddy Walk Program is available at www.ndss.org.
