Shane and Wyatt visit Holy Cross Football

We are with Chris Riley

What a great visit to Worcester MA this weekend. As you may know, we are traveling to each Patriot League football stadium this season to promote Down syndrome Awareness, Acceptance, Inclusion and Respect for all individuals with Down syndrome. This weekend, the first stop of the season took us on the road to Holy Cross ✝️.

When we left home on Friday evening, all we knew, we were going to Massachusetts to see a football game. We knew we were staying at the Hilton Garden Inn in Worcester. We knew nothing else. Well, we did know that Holy Cross was paying New Hampshire and UNH Assistant Football Coach John Bowes knew we were coming and we knew he would look for us to say Hi 👋.

John Bowes, Assistant Football Coach

University of New Hampshire

Thanks Coach for spending a few moments with us. We know you were busy and appreciate all your support. ❤️ ❤️

Except for Coach Bowes, we knew no one and didn’t even have tickets for the game. Actually, except for Google Maps, didn’t even know where the stadium was. 😊 😊

On our way up, we stopped in Connecticut at Cracker Barrel to eat and arrived in town at 11pm. The hotel team at the Hilton Garden Inn were fantastic, allowed us to park in front of the hotel as all the handicap parking slots were filled , quickly checked us in and we went right to our rooms and to bed. We had a big day on Saturday, just didn’t know yet what exactly that what was in store.

Good Night 💤😴

GAME DAY!! Well, like all days, we start with a good breakfast. We also noticed at there was a lot of purple around eating as well. This lead to Wyatt wanting to give away some of the Awareness Bracelets and in true Wyatt fashion, he picked the table with the most people. This table just happened to be parents and family of a couple of the Holy Cross football 🏈 players. What a great group, before you knew it, we had an invite to their tailgate party and a promise to meet some players. We were all in.

The Breakfast Club

Once we arrived on campus at the College of the Holy Cross, we fell in love. What a beautiful campus. BUT, as we all know, its about the people. The parking garage attendant spent a few minutes, not seconds but minutes speaking to us. What a super lady who also was a mother with a child who had autism. When we finally drove off, Shane and Wyatt blew her kisses and she had one of our Awareness Bracelets. I wish I took a photo, 😠 but she definitely set the tone for what we were about to experience. Next was a Holy Cross Police Officer who helped us get from the parking garage down to the baseball field and to where the tailgate party had already started. Again, another bracelet was given away. If you notice in the first photo with Chris Riley, Wyatt has a handful of the bracelets. In all, we handed out hundreds of them. We hope people wear them or at least keep them, think of us occasionally and remember always the 400,000+ individuals with Down syndrome in the USA 🇺🇸.

Shane and Wyatt Down Syndrome

Awareness Bracelets

At the tailgate party we met so many awesome people. EVERYONE welcomed us as though we were family and they were all so nice to us. We met parents and family of the current players, past players, fans who were tailgating, the Holy Cross Band and so many others. We handed out our bracelets and spoke to many on why we drove almost 5 hours to attend this game. Why we will be driving and attending all the Patriot League Teams this season. We stand for and promote Down syndrome #Awareness #Acceptance #Inclusion and #Respect for all individuals. Yes, there was also a football 🏈 game and we believe we brought them some good luck as Holy Crossed scored late in the game to win. OK, maybe we didn’t have anything to do with the final score or ..... maybe we did??

Thank you so much to Head Coach Bob Chesney. You are one cool 😎 guy in our book and you have outstanding men on your team. All that we came in contact with took a few moments with us, said Hi and posed for photos. We will never forget this and thank you.

Coach Bob Chesney

Shane giving Coach a kiss

Our experience this weekend exceeded all our expectations. When we left on Friday we didn’t know what to expect and when we left only 24 hours later - we felt like family. We are Holy Cross Fans now and we hope we succeeded on our mission of raising awareness. Shane and Wyatt will never play college football but we are all on the same team - The Team of Life. Each person we met, each person that reads this blog and each person that is following this story will someday have a choice to make. A choice of helping someone less fortunate, someone down on their luck, someone with Down syndrome or special needs. We hope when that happens, you do what’s in your heart. Doing nothing is doing something - NOTHING. We all have the opportunity to do or say something and we hope you do.

This weekend, we will be in Lafayette and although Holy Cross set the bar high, we are looking forward to another great weekend and game. We hope to continue to spread our message and hope you all continue to follow us and support us. We love ❤️ ❤️ you all!! 🤗 🤗