When Ethan Holt walks into a room, people pay attention.
The young model with Down syndrome’s success story starts when he was discovered entirely by chance in 2019. Ethan showed up at a photoshoot hosted by Help Us Gather, a nonprofit in Clearwater, Florida that advocates for people with disabilities and connects them to social events.
“Our friends with special needs don’t often get the opportunity to get beautiful, professional, high-quality photos taken of them, and we think they deserve that,” said Robin Lally, Founder of Help Us Gather (or HUG, for short). When Ethan walked into the room in March of 2019, Lally says, “We were just blown away by his natural talent in front of the camera. Everyone, even our professional photographer, knew that Ethan had the ‘it’ factor. It was immediately clear.”
So the HUG team went to work, immediately contacting area talent agencies under the assumption that they would want to bring Ethan on board. However, calls and emails went unreturned, and one Tampa-area talent agent told Lally there “isn’t a market” for models with special needs. But the HUG team knew that simply wasn’t true. “People with disabilities want to see models who represent them, and audiences are hungry for diversity and inclusion in marketing,” said Lally.
The HUG team began contacting companies directly, offering to pay for a photoshoot and provide professional photos to anyone willing to put Ethan front and center. One florist in Largo agreed, so the HUG crew arranged a time and location for Ethan and his family to meet on the beach with the florist and a professional photographer.
The florist never showed. It was heartbreaking, and the HUG staff scrambled to make the most of an unfortunate situation by rushing to the store to buy flowers and continue the photoshoot on our own. The HUG team even sent the finished photos to the florist to use, but again, they declined, citing “ugly leaves” on the bouquet used in the photos.
The issue of inclusion and representation of those with disabilities is bigger than a bouquet of flowers, but this demonstrates just how difficult it can be for people with special needs to get a simple “yes”. Not everyone believes in the value that all humans are equal, but HUG certainly does. The photo you see here was used for an advertisement for HUG’s Celebrity Event, a fundraising gala held in 2019. As Ethan waited for that first “yes”, the HUG team continued putting Ethan in the spotlight, pushing for his opportunity to show just how talented and deserving this young man is.
