The Down Syndrome Association of Greater Toledo (DSAGT) is excited to announce that they have received a $3,000 grant from the Toledo Rotary Club Foundation to help fund initial start-up costs for a Family Resource Closet. The goal of the Family Resource Closet is to help provide families who have a child with Down syndrome with essential items for the first months and years of their child’s life. These items will include clothing, diapers, books, developmental learning aides, and therapeutic items, such as talk tools, feeding aides, etc.

Often times, DSAGT is the only organization that families who have a child with Down syndrome reach out to. The staff at DSAGT works with families to refer them to other service providers to help with certain resources, however, there are still many items that families are unable to receive from other service providers. The goal of the Family Resource Closet is to help fill that gap, of items needed that families don’t have access to even if they are receiving services from other providers. 

The Family Resource closet will be available to families living in Northwest Ohio who have a child with Down syndrome between birth and five years old. It will help supply them with clothing up to 12 months of age. They can also access diapers, and books for their child. In addition, families will be able to access popular items frequently recommended by physical, occupational and speech therapists. 

Over the past four years, the Organization has been working to increase the number of resources available to lower income families who have a child with Down syndrome. In 2020, the Organization received a grant from United Way to offer the Covid-19 Food Assistance program, which helped provide 60 families with grocery store gift cards to those struggling financially during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2022, the Organization started a Holiday Adopt-a-family program, which helped provide holiday gifts and grocery store gift cards to 14 families last year.  In addition to these, the Organization also offers scholarships to families to help cover the costs of summer camps, therapy programs and more. The Family Resource Closet will be the newest program to this grouping of services offered to families who are struggling financially. The Organization plans to have the closet set-up and ready to be accessed by families in early 2025. 

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself!
Hi! I’m Krista! I’m a wife to my husband Zach, and a new mom to our daughter Josie. I’m also a dog mom to our Beagle mix, Navy.
For the past five years I’ve been serving as the Executive Director for DSAGT. Prior to that I served on the Board of Directors for DSAGT and worked in Public Accounting as an Auditor, specializing in the non-profit industry. Growing up I always thought I would be a teacher, and I feel like DSAGT has been such a perfect blend of getting to work with and support children while also using my non-profit and accounting expertise.
As the ED at DSAGT I oversee all of the day-to-day operations, which include strategic management, financial reporting and accounting, board relations, program development and oversight, staff management, public relations and advocacy work, fundraising and development, and marketing and web design.

2. When and why did you join the DSAGT team?
I technically joined DSAGT in 2017 as a volunteer but became the Director in September of 2019. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a draw to people with Down syndrome. Around 2015, I started following a few families on Instagram who had children with Down syndrome and loved following along on their journeys and saw how hard they had to advocate for their children. I remember thinking how much I’d love to work with children who had Down syndrome. Then in 2017, I attended a non-profit board fair, not really looking to even join a board but I discovered that we had a local Down syndrome association here and met Renee, our last ED. We really hit it off and I jumped in immediately getting involved and going to events. If you’re familiar with public accounting, it can be pretty draining career, it’s a lot of long hours sitting at a desk all day and I found that my time with DSAGT refilled my cup and I couldn’t get enough.
When the opportunity arose to apply for this role, I knew I couldn’t pass it up. I feel so grateful every day that I get to serve such an amazing community of people.

3. What are some future goals you have for DSAGT?
Gosh, I have so many!! I think my main goal is to have everyone with Down syndrome in Northwest Ohio getting connected with us, no matter what life stage they’re at! We really are trying so hard to make sure that there is something for everyone here at DSAGT and I know that we have some gaps and could absolutely be doing better at some things but we’re slowly addressing those gaps and adding in new programs and services. The addition of Lauren and Leah to the team this year has been a huge step forward in growing our capacity as an organization and being able to serve more families in ways we hadn’t been able to previously.
If I lived in a world where I had all the funding I needed, I’d see DSAGT having a beautiful space that allowed us to have a day program for adults with Down syndrome after they graduated from school, and also be able to offer occasional respite services to families. I’d love for us to really be able to walk our families through each stage of transition that comes with having a child with a disability. I’d love to have a career coaching program where we could connect our individuals with area businesses and help get them fulfilling jobs in the community. I’d love more school-age programming, especially ones that
integrate OT, PT and speech. It would be great to have a more formal IEP support service as well. The beautiful thing about DSAGT is that since we’re a local non-profit, the opportunities are really endless in terms of what types of programming we could offer here, the only hurdle we face is that we have an extremely small budget currently. I can say I’m very proud of all that we accomplish on that small budget, and we make the most of every single dollar that’s donated.
In reality, I don’t have all the funding I’d like so some of the things we are working on behind the scenes at the moment is exploring new office locations. While it will likely still be a small location, it will hopefully be a space that allows us to expand our offerings. We’re looking at growing our World Down Syndrome Day celebrations throughout the community in the coming years. We’re working on growing our programs for our school-age children. We’re also working on possibly building a program to support individuals and their families as they transition into adulthood. We’re working on improving our new parent and medical outreach, including updating our new parent packets. Lastly, we’re working on revamping our current financial aid service line up so that hopefully that can be a better resource for families.

4. What are your favorite things to do in your free time?
Well, my current obsession is my daughter Josie, she’s nine months and just the most fun little person to hang out with all day. We hang out with our family quite a bit on the weekends and enjoy tailgating at the Toledo Rocket Football games and going to watch the Toledo Walleye. I also like to travel and explore new places. I also love finding creative outlets, some days that’s painting, other days it’s making royal iced cookies or practicing my newest hobby, crocheting. I also love home design and organizing, I’m already getting excited to decorate the house for Christmas. Growing up my grandma had a way of making every holiday so special through her home décor and family meals and I want to give Josie that same feeling of home throughout her childhood that I was lucky enough to have.
And since all of that and running a non-profit doesn’t keep me busy enough, I also currently serve on the Girls on the Run Northwest Ohio board and as the Immediate Past President of the Association of Fundraising Professionals of Northwest Ohio.