A Loving Tribute to DeOndra Dixon

 

GLOBAL’s 2020 virtual Be Beautiful Be Yourself Fashion Show ended with a loving tribute to GLOBAL Ambassador DeOndra Dixon and brought us all to tears. GLOBAL and DeOndra’s family have set up the “DeOndra Dixon Down Syndrome Research Fund” to focus on the often neglected population of African Americans with Down syndrome. Anna and John J. Sie are generously matching $100K for this important research. DeOndra’s legacy will power us on. ALWAYS LOVED NEVER FORGOTTEN.

With the heaviest of hearts and full of sorrow, we are beyond sad that our beloved Global Ambassador DeOndra Dixon has passed. She is no doubt a true angel looking down on us, just as she was always an angel on earth.

The Global Down Syndrome Foundation’s highest honor, the Quincy Jones Exceptional Advocacy Award, was inspired by DeOndra and she was its first recipient. Quincy Jones himself introduced us to DeOndra as one of the most articulate, irrepressible, magnetic people he had ever met. DeOndra was brought into this world in a loving family who treated her like any other family member. They gave her the gifts of complete acceptance, confidence, and knowledge. They empowered her to graduate with a regular diploma from high school and to take life by storm, which, if you knew DeOndra, she absolutely did. Her parents, Annette and George Dixon, brother Jamie Foxx, sister Deidra Dixon, nieces Anelise and Corinne, dear friend Kim, and large extended family are beyond consolable, and we ask that you help us respect their privacy during this difficult time.

For Global, we have lost our talented, intelligent, feisty, beautiful, kind, loving, caring, pure and giving heart, DeOndra Dixon. Our Down syndrome community has lost a beacon of hope, a true leader, and role model whose aim was to always help others. She was a bright light in this world of ours.

DeOndra was our anchor. Her excitement for our Be Beautiful Be Yourself Fashion Show each year was palpable, and she often posted about her “secret moves” that she was practicing (and she did keep them secret right up until her stage call).

Over the years our fashion show became a reunion for Global’s “extended Down syndrome family” where DeOndra and her family, Quincy Jones, John C. McGinley, Amanda Booth, Beverly Johnson, Kyra Phillips & John Roberts, Ronnie & Shamari DeVoe, Matt Dillon, The Salah Foundation, Peter Kudla, Jules Haimovitz, Tomago Collins, Jay Mills, the Gold/Rest/Karsh/Perry, Vollbracht/Winfield, Capuano, Rotella, Sikora, Levin, Fonfara-LaRose, and Snodgrass families, our families, our tribes would come together over a weekend and celebrate life and people with Down syndrome.

Our extended family loves DeOndra deeply and unreservedly for who she is. Global and DeOndra’s family cannot imagine our fashion show without her, and so through our heartbreak and tears, we were able to honor her memory at our Be Beautiful Be Yourself Fashion Show with a loving tribute video and announce the “DeOndra Dixon Down Syndrome Research Fund” set up in conjunction with DeOndra’s family. The fund will focus on research to address the disparity of lifespan for African Americans with Down syndrome and will be matched up to $100,000 by a generous donation from Anna and John J. Sie.

Everyone at the Global Down Syndrome Foundation is in complete shock and full of grief. Please join us in honoring her and share your fondest memories of our beautiful and brilliant DeOndra Dixon. DeOndra is already sorely missed, but she will never be forgotten.