Hillsborough Local Honored as Disability Advocate

Hillsborough, NJ -- The Somerset County Board of Freeholders recently honored winners of the county’s 2015 Disability Advocates Awards at a freeholders’ meeting.

Erin Morris, president of GiGi’s Playhouse in Hillsborough, a Down syndrome achievement center, was selected in the individual category. The Jerry Davis Center for Children and Families in Manville was recognized in the business category.

Morris was chosen for her commitment to advocating on behalf of and promoting positive awareness of the needs of Somerset County citizens with disabilities, and for bringing to New Jersey a chapter of GiGi’s Playhouse.

The goal of the GiGi Playhouse Achievement Center and its founder is to help people with Down syndrome strive for achievement, empowerment and self-confidence. The Playhouse currently runs literacy (tutoring) programs, fitness and nutritional workshops, physical therapy sessions and art classes, free of charge.

The Playhouse also provides a place where families can gather to find comfort and information regarding day-to-day challenges.

Morris’s long-range dream is to provide employment opportunities in the form of a Hugs for Mugs café, which would be a coffee shop run by adults with Down syndrome.

The nomination form states that through Ms. Morris’s efforts, the lives of “specially-abled” individuals, and the way the community interacts with them, has changed.

(Photo provided: Somerset County Freeholder Director Mark Caliguire joins Erin Morris and her children for a photo after presenting her with the 2015 Disability Advocates Award in the individual category. Through her fund-raising efforts and her success in recruiting many volunteers and supporters, the dream of a New Jersey chapter of GiGi’s Playhouse became a reality in January of this year in Hillsborough Township.)