When mother Meagan Nash discovered that OshKosh B’Gosh was hosting an open casting call for a new advertising campaign, she knew she wanted to submit photos of her son, Asher, for consideration.
The people in charge of the casting call, however, responded to Nash’s submission by writing that the company hadn’t “requested a special needs baby.”
Rather than accept this discouraging note at face value, Nash decided that she would do everything she could to change the company’s mind.
About two weeks ago, Nash shared her photo online to Kids with Down Syndrome’s Facebook page, hoping to have Asher’s photos go viral and naturally attract the attention of OshKosh B’Gosh.
“I would love for OshKosh to meet my son and see what we see in him,” Nash explained. “I don’t want them to use him because of this fuss we are making on the internet. I want them to use him because they value him and see how much he could contribute to their advertisement.”
Nash has a strong point. While many retail advertisements have become more diverse, people with disabilities are still highly underrepresented in ads even though 20% of American families have immediate ties with someone who has a disability.
From Nash’s perspective, she believes that stores would do well to include people – like her son Asher – who have disabilities in their ads because they would then be able to communicate with far more families and customers.
“Children with Down syndrome and other disabilities are incredible human beings, and we want OshKosh to want to help change the world’s perception,” Nash said.
From the looks of it, Nash may be able to succeed in her endeavor. Since she first shared Asher’s photos, they’ve been seen by and shared over 115k times.
You can see how cute Asher is and do your part in spreading this post even farther on the Internet here:
