This Mom Aims to Fix a Big Problem with Back-to-School Advertisements

As they say in the advertising world, “Image is everything.” If that’s the case, where does that leave the disabled?
Katie Driscoll, an Illinois mom and photographer, noticed something missing from back-to-school ads. Even though children of different races and gender were featured, there were never any children who look like her four-year-old daughter, Grace, who has Down syndrome.
That’s when Driscoll, the owner of 5 Boys + 1 Girl = 6 Photography, decided to start her own photo project to feature kids of all stripes, including those who are disabled.
As Driscoll told Buzzfeed, “How can we expect children to be accepting of children who are different if they are virtually [nonexistent] in the general media and advertising?”
MORE: This Grandmother Is Helping People with Down Syndrome Gain Confidence
“I put a casting call out and got together a group of children that I thought would represent all children returning to school,” Driscoll told ABC News. “Obviously, you can’t include every diagnosis but I wanted people to see differences because it’s important.”
She held a photoshoot in a Chicago bookstore, and said her models really enjoyed interacting with each other. You can check out their fun photo session in the video below.
Driscoll has also started the organization Changing the Face of Beauty, which encourages advertisers to feature those with disabilities in promotions. Based upon the number of people talking about her bookstore photo shoot, we fully expect Driscoll will find success in this venture as well.
[ph]
DON’T MISS: How One Father Started a Movement to Employ Those With Disabilities

How San Francisco Got Its Residents to Care About Sewers

After a huge sinkhole opened up in San Francisco’s Richmond District, city officials knew they had to come up with a way to sell residents on a massive upgrade to the city’s outdated sewer systems.
The Sewer System Improvement Program is a 20-year, multi-billion dollar project to update the ecologically unsound and dated treatment plants, while shoring up the whole system from the threat of future earthquakes. But officials at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission worried that a boring PSA wouldn’t be sufficient to communicate the urgency of the undertaking.
In October, the Commission launched a new advertising campaign that used humor to inform San Franciscans about the sewer project. The ads read as notes from the San Francisco Sewer System, and included text such as “Your #2 is my #1,” “No one deals with more crap than I do” and “You can’t live a day without me.” They worked. The Commission’s social media reach has expanded and conversations have started on Twitter and Facebook about making the city’s major watersheds more green. Attendance at the department’s public planning forums is up too, with roughly 80 people attending, and tours of the city’s treatment plants booked months in advance.
“It’s about how you approach the problem, not about how much money you have,” Tyrone Jue, the Commission’s director of communications, told Fast Company. “The advertising campaign, yes, it costs money. [But] it’s a choice every agency has to make, whether you’re small or large. You engage with people in different manners … People want that transparency and openness out of their government; it creates community.”
MORE: How a $300 Million Donation Kept These Classic Artworks in Detroit