I was surfing the web and stumbled upon this video titled “My Perfect Family: Candle Dad”, and it got me interested. It starts with the dad cooking breakfast for his family, who lives in Beachland, Auckland, New Zealand. From the first few minutes in the video Tony, the dad introduces us to Nicki and Emma Sykes, who are only 13 months between each other but what makes them unique is that the sisters both have downs syndrome hence the name downlights that I’ll get to in a minute.
When Emma finished school at age 21, her dad Tony tried to find a job for her, and he asked a variety of businesses that he knew since he had his own business. Sadly no one wanted to give her a job, so they started their own business making candles. They always had candles at home, and Emma really likes them, so the dad thought let’s make candles. However, he soon figured out that making candles it’s not as easy as it seems, so he asked help from his friends and one of them introduced him to Jennifer Del Bel who already had her candle making company.
She offered Tony and Emma to use her manufactured facility to produce their own candles while she taught them those tips and tricks that she picked out along the years. In the beginning, Tony had a small selection of fragrances that he would sell at the market, and that’s what lead to the media picking up the story and talk about it which helped them sell a candle a minute for two days after they appeared on TV. Which help the brand Downlights get on its feet, and I think you already why the name downlights and that’s because both girls have downs syndrome.
The independence in Emma has grown since the start of the business, which is really amazing to see. To see the changes for a better life that this job gave her makes me go speechless! Tony hopes that as the business grows, he can employ more people with downs syndrome so that they too can have a better life.
Downlights Information :
Best of luck Downlights,
Alex
Such a lovely story 💕. Thanks for sharing!😊
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I posted in 2019, but I felt it deserved more love so I reposted it!
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I wonder how they’re doing now?
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I think I linked their site on that post too 🙂
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It’s such an amazing story!
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Its actully an old old post I reposted but happy you liked it.
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