Princeton Seminary Student and Tutor Featured in National Down Syndrome Society Video September 30 in Times Square

Princeton, NJ, September 28, 2007–Princeton Theological Seminary student Ben Gulker of Holland, Michigan, and Max Gebert, the Princeton boy he tutors, will be featured in a video to be shown in Times Square September 30 in conjunction with the annual National Down Syndrome Society Buddy Walk. The video is part of National Down Syndrome Awareness Month, and will be shown Sunday on the forty-foot Newscorp Astrovision screen. The video’s forty-minute time slot is sponsored by Panasonic and includes 215 photographs of people with Down syndrome, chosen from 2,500 images that were submitted to the society.

Gulker worked with Max for two years, during his junior and middler years at the Seminary. Max, who has Down syndrome, is an eighth-grader at John Witherspoon Middle School in Princeton and is in mainstream classes. His mother, Brigitte Gebert, said that the tutoring made a difference. “The job description stated ‘tutor,’ but Ben certainly became more than that. Max got better grades as the result of the patient help he received from Ben, and he also had a male ‘buddy’ he could look up to. Being the only teenager with three younger sisters in our household, Max could talk to Ben about ‘stuff,’” she said, such as sports, school projects, and relationships with peers and the opposite sex.

Gulker grew up with a neighbor who had Down syndrome, but said that tutoring Max “was something I stumbled into, it wasn’t naturally comfortable and easy. I didn’t know how to relate to him at first,” he said. However, “as soon as I got to know the kid there was no way I couldn’t do this, it was the perfect fit.” The two studied together several times a week, and played lots of pick-up basketball together.

Gulker hopes the friendship with Max will last a long time. “People with Down syndrome are people just like everybody else,” Gulker said, “It’s easy to see a handicap and by default assume they are capable of less, [but] if you spend any amount of time with a person who has Down syndrome, you’ll realize there’s a wealth of potential. You just have to have patience.” Quoting the Book of Corinthians, chapter 13, he added, “Love is patient.”

Since Gulker will graduate from the Seminary in May, Samuel Olson, an entering Master of Divinity student, will pick up where he left off. Olson has just begun tutoring Max, and says Max “knows how to enjoy life and appreciate the joy of the moment”—which reminds him to do the same.

The National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) is a nonprofit organization with more than 195 affiliates nationwide representing the more than 350,000 Americans who have this genetic condition. NDSS is committed to being the national leader in supporting and enhancing the quality of life, and realizing the potential of all people with Down syndrome through education, research, and advocacy initiatives that benefit people with Down syndrome and their families.

Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812 as the first seminary established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. It is the largest Presbyterian seminary in the country, with more than 700 students in seven graduate degree programs.

For more information, contact the Office of Communications/Publications at 609.497.7760.  To learn more about the National Down Syndrome Society, the Buddy Walk, or the video, visit www.ndss.org.

Photo Credit: Brigitte Gebert