By Jen Franklin Kearns, ds-connex team member

In honor of Father’s Day and great dads of kids with disabilities everywhere, ds-connex is excited to announce the 9^th Annual #DownSyndromeDads Contest to recognize and celebrate these amazing fathers! 

Contest Overview

Nominate the fantastic #DownSyndromeDads in your life by sending a photo and brief (one to three sentences), meaningful message about them to ds-connex. Please send your submissions to contests@ds-connex.org.

All photos and descriptions will be posted to a 2022 #DownSyndromeDads photo album on the ds-connex Facebook page. All nominators and #DownSyndromeDads are encouraged to promote the contest and ask friends and family members on Facebook to vote for them by liking their photo in the 2022 #DownSyndromeDads album. 

The 1st prize winner will receive a $250 donation to their Down syndrome fundraising team along with a $100 Home Depot gift card. The second prize winner will be awarded a $100 team donation along with a $50 Home Depot gift card. 

Details for This Year’s Contest

The ds-connex team will collect #DownSyndromeDads nominations until midnight EDT on June 12^th. The Facebook album will be posted on or after June 13^th, at which time voting will begin. We will notify nominators via email when the album is posted and voting begins, and we will conclude voting on Monday, June 20th at 9:30am EDT, when the winners of the contest will be determined. The winners will be chosen based on the total of likes (or reactions, to include “love,” etc) on the photos in the #DownSyndromeDads photo album on the ds-connex Facebook page during the voting period. The #DownSyndromeDads contest participants must observe Facebook’s policies. Please note that in order for your entry to be included in the voting, we must receive your entry by midnight on June 12^th. We will happily include entries submitted after 6/12 in the Facebook album, but they will not be eligible for the prizes. Results of the contest will be announced on our Facebook page on Monday, June 20th.

The monetary donations must go to a team for a Down syndrome fundraising walk event. If your team is not registered at the time of the drawing, it is the winner’s responsibility to notify ds-connex when their team is registered in order to receive the donation. 

This year, we are happy to provide the winners with either a physical gift card or an e-gift card.

Please note…

We welcome participants in last year’s contest to re-enter with a new photo! 

By nominating someone for the #DownSyndromeDads contest, you are giving ds-connex permission to edit your submission for grammar and/or length, and to share your submission via the Connexions blog and across multiple social platforms, in order to raise awareness and appreciation of fathers in the Down syndrome community and all they do. The #DownSyndromeDads contest is sponsored by ds-connex. 

We look forward to seeing your #DownSyndromeDads entries!