On World Down Syndrome Day, Thursday 21 March 2019, the Down Syndrome community is calling upon every person with Down syndrome to tell the world to “leave no one behind”.

Kala Wock local resident on celebrating Down Syndrome Awareness, "March 21st is Down Syndrome Awareness Day, we celebrate with a campaign called Rock Your Socks, which is celebrated worldwide. The day is to encourage people to be kind, to celebrate each other's differences, and to see the ability in all people around us. And we're really excited to spend the day doing that."

Wock shares her families journey, "We have a child who was born with Down Syndrome and we adopted him from Taiwan in 2015. Every day we are just really honored and blessed to do life with him, to see and experience the world through his eyes, and cheer him on as he achieves all that he wants to. All the hard work he puts into achieving his goals."

"Our daughter who is 7, tie-dyes socks for Rock Your Socks Day, she sold 25 pairs of socks, we just had a limited amount and she took that on herself." Wock goes on to add where the funds are going, "The money she raises from making the socks and selling them is going to a friend in Taiwan who runs an organization for vulnerable children. We help volunteer with this organization and we really love helping vulnerable children around the world. We know of a little boy who doesn't have a forever family, he is living in an institution and he has down syndrome. So she goes and visits him when she can, and she is going to purchase items from the money our daughter raises to purchase toys, and some things for him to have, a backpack, and some clothes. And she is going to go visit him for us and take that stuff."

The Wock family has been celebrating for a couple of years, "We have been wearing socks for a couple of years since our family found out what the down syndrome community was doing. This is the first year she got everything organized herself and figured out what she wanted to do, she was really excited some of her friends bought socks, family members, and St. Mary's is rocking their socks and participating as well. My son's teacher helped organize that so we are excited to see all the kids socks at school, and it's exciting to see how they encourage and celebrate kids uniqueness."

You can check out more information on World Down Syndrome Awareness Day here.