Gigi's Playhouse Open House

All aboard the GiGi’s Playhouse Polar Express:

Families with individuals with Down syndrome, physicians, therapists, teachers, volunteers, community agencies, supporters etc… Come and get your GiGi’s Playhouse Passport for entry to our informational sessions to hear about what GiGi’s Playhouse will bring to the North Central Florida community. Food! Fun! Games! Activities for all ages and abilities.

Email Sheila at Sgallino@gigisplayhouse.org to get your exclusive GiGi’s Polar Express tickets for entry to our Open House. No cost for the tickets. Your passports to a Polar Express experience will be waiting for you at the Open House. Email us with your name, address, how many tickets and age of children if any.

When: Saturday, December 13, 2015 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Where: The Girl’s Place: 2101 Nw 39th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32605

#GivingTuesday- Save the date: December 2nd

  
  Giving Tuesday is an opportunity for us all to take one day a year to give special support and consideration to our favorite organizations. This year on December 2nd, we hope that you will consider Gigi's Playhouse Gainesville in your giving. We give thanks on Thanksgiving. We shop on black Friday. Browse the web on Cyber Monday. Now a day dedicated to giving back. We are thankful to the Coleman Foundation for their $15,000 matching grant for your #GivingTuesday donations.

Lots of great news

Lots of fun and exciting things are going on with Gigi's Playhouse Gainesville!

Our 1st annual golf scramble raised close to $8,000! The event was so much fun, tons of golf was played and raffle items auctioned off. Looking forward to having another one next year!



Several of our Gainesville committee members attended the annual Gigi's Playhouse conference for 2014 in Chicago this past weekend. Nearly 200 Gigi's Playhouse board members, committee members, and volunteers from all across the nation attended. Some members from the Mexico Playhouse even attended! We had the opportunity to meet Nancy Gianni ( The founder of the 1st Gigi's Playhouse) and her daughter Gigi!

 

We also have an open house event and gala coming up soon. Details on those events will be coming soon!

Hello Again!

Just wanted to update everyone on what has been happening with Gigi's Playhouse Gainesville. Since our last post we have had lots of good things going on! We have hosted several more events including a bake sake, several garage sales and a huge bowl-a-thon event that raised close to $4000.00!!! We have raised over 10,000 and are in our second phase of our goal, we are slowly but surely getting to our 100,000 goal and our target opening of Summer 2015!!!! We also have lots of new committee members that will shortly be added to the blog.



Our next event coming up is a big and very exciting one:


            Gigi's Playhouse Gainesville is having it's 1st annual Golf Scramble and Silent Auction!!!

                                                              When: Saturday October 4th 2014

                                                                   Where: Ironwood Golf Course
                                                                               2100 NE 39th Ave
                                                                            Gainesville, Fl. 32609


Cost of the event is 75.00 per player which includes:
- Breakfast and lunch
- Prizes
- Range
- Balls, Green fees, and cart


Event has a 8:00am shotgun start


To register for this event: Go here!!!


We would love to see you there. Spread the news of the event to family, friends, and c-workers.

Who doesnt love a good bargain?!

             Here is the flyer that's being passed around!! Come out and support us.

A day to honor our kids!

21.00 dollars would have a huge impact on our center!! Please donate in honor of World Down Syndrome Day. March 21st also known as 3/21 is World Down Syndrome Day. Please join us in donating $21 to help raise money for our GiGi's Playhouse of North Central Florida: Gainesville, Fl. It's easy just click the link http://gigisplayhouse.org/locations-in-the-works#GF

Come celebrate with us!!!

Wanted to share!

Please watch and share. This is why we are doing this, we need this in Gainesville, Fl. What an inspirational and touching video of what is coming to our community. Please share with families, professionals, community members etc... help support us! Enjoy!

How's it going??

Hey everybody! Just wanted to do an update post of what's been going on. We had the spring festival last Saturday and it went amazing. We connected with 3 families that had members with Down syndrome and we exchanged information with lots of other agency's and organizations. Overall it was a huge success, we shared our name and information with lots of people and received a lot of potential opportunities. That same Saturday we also had our bake sale/ yard sale, which our committee member Shelia headed and she was able to raise 1200.00!!! So that was a HUGE event and very successful, we plan on making that an annual event for Gigi's Playhouse Gainesville. Speaking of committee members, we have a new one! We will be putting her information up soon.  We are currently working on some other events and projects to fundraise and spread the word, as soon as we have all the details together, I will post all the information so you can get involved! Well that is all for now folks, but as always keep spreading the word and keep coming back! 

Good finds and good treats!!

Hey everyone! So the same day we are having our 1st informational event, we are also having our 1st fundraising event! Here is the information on the fundraiser:



                              BAKE SALE AND YARD SALE!
                      SATURDAY MARCH 1ST 2014
                                     8AM-12PM
                            1801 NW 80TH BLVD
                              GAINESVILLE,FL.


                                        This event is being sponsored by:
                   FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS ASSOCIATION

                                            Come by and support a great cause!

Fun Times

Gigi's Playhouse centers offer a variety of activities for every age. Typically each center offers about 25 programs. We wanted to share with you what programs may be offered at our Gainesville center. Please see the program tabs to see what we may offer. Once we get to that stage we will select the programs that will be in our center. The kids will sure have a blast!

Hello world!!

Yesterday Gigi's playhouse Gainesville was introduced to the world! Our Facebook page went active, our blog was made public, and our donation site was  put up! We were so excited to be able to officially announce this project that we are so passionate about. We are blown away already at the response that we have received from just yesterday. We got over 200 likes on our Facebook page in not even 24 hours! So thank you for your support thus far. Announcing ourselves to the world is just one step of so many.. but to us it is such a HUGE step! So we hope you stay with us on this journey... it will be an amazing one that's for sure! Keep spreading the word.

Come One, Come all

Gigi's Gainesville has booked our first official informational event! A small event, but an event nonetheless! Our first event to get our name out there, to spread the word, and to hopefully meet some future playhouse kids! So drumroll please........ Our first event will be......

                                    Spring Festival and Agency Fair
                                       Saturday March 1st 2014
                                                                          10am- 1pm
                                                                Lincoln Middle School
                                                                  1001 SE 12th Street 
                                                                      Gainesville, Fl.

Also at this meet will be local agencies and community businesses that provide essential services to families with children who have special needs or developmental delays.

We are so excited to have a booth at this event! Feel free to come by and support us! we would love to see you there. This event is a free community event and light snacks will be provided!                            

                                  

Coming Soon!!!

Hello there! We are excited to announce that a Gigi's Playhouse will soon be coming to Gainesville,Fl. Never heard of it? Well stick around we'll tell you all about it. Gigi's Playhouse is an achievement and awareness center for infant,toddlers,and young adult  individuals with  Down syndrome, their families,and the community. Gigi's Playhouse is a non-profit organization that offers all their services free. Due to the centers being non- profit we rely on donations and volunteers from the community. The centers offer a wide variety of services from therapies, tutoring, activities such as music and art, and family support. If you would like to know more about Gigi's Playhouse in general please click on the About Gigi's tab. Currently there are 16 locations for Gigi's Playhouse across the United states and several emerging locations. As of right now there are no locations in Florida and we are excited to say that is about to change. We are in the process of bringing one to Gainesville, Fl! Our target opening date is late spring/early summer of 2015. We wanted to start this blog so you can follow along with our process, watch as our center emerges, spread the word, and get involved if you can. There are several ways that you can help:

     Donate:
As a non-profit organization we rely on donations from the community and corporations. To get a Gigi's Playhouse center open it takes about 75,000 dollars. Since we are in the beginning stages of our center we are a long ways away from that amount. However we believe in our community and our families to help us reach our goal. This is a great organization for a great cause: Down syndrome impacts and has touched the lives of many people. As we move forward in the process we will have fundraising events that you can attend. we will post information on each event as they approach. However if you would like to donate through here, that would be amazing and just fine too. Any amount is welcome and appreciated, no amount is unnoticed. If you would like to donate, please visit: http://gigisplayhouse.org/locations-in-the-works and click on the Gainesville, Fl location. For more information and more options on how to donate, please click on the donate tab above.
  
    Volunteer:
Volunteers are what makes a Gigi's Playhouse centers operate. They are the backbone of our centers. All of the programs that are offered at Gigi's are volunteer run from the therapies to the tutoring and the activities. Right now in the beginning stages of opening our center we will need volunteers to help with fundraising events: planning, decorating, and running them. When our center opens we will need volunteers to provide therapies, tutoring and for the other activities we will offer as a center. If you have the time, passion, and would love to get involved with our center please see the Volunteer tab above. 

    Spread the word:
We want our center to succeed, we want to reach families that need and want our help. We want our community to be involved and be just as passionate as we are! Pass the information along, let people know were coming, tell your family, friends, associates, neighbors. Our community is essentially what is going to make our center succeed. Direct them to our blog, to our Facebook page, to the Gigi's Playhouse website. Shout it from the rooftops! 

Stay informed. Follow our Facebook: Gigi's Playhouse Gainesville. Come back and visit our blog. This blog will follow our every step. We will update you on our events, our donations, our progression. We are very excited and passionate about this center, many of us on the Gainesville Committee have children with Down Syndrome so its a cause very close to our heart. We want you the community to be just as excited about it. Down syndrome has touched many people's life and this is a great place for individuals with Down Syndrome to have. Thank you for stopping by and come back soon!