Connie Feda
Connie Feda, born August 9, 1963, in Portsmouth Virginia, has combined her entrepreneurial spirit with the experience of raising a special needs child, to become a leader in the disability advocacy community.
Connie's family moved to Crafton, PA when she was a young child. She graduated from Point Park College in 1985 and began a career teaching English to refugees at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit. After a few years, she left the job to care for her six young. One of Connie's six children had Down Syndrome. In the mid-2000s, Connie started a home-based laser printing business.
This was an opportunity to continue homeschooling her children and serve as a Girl Scout Troop Leader. The troop was the FIRST Girl Scout troop in the Southwest PA region to be inclusive to both neurodivergent and neurotypical girls. it was also the opportunity to build a nest egg and pursue her dream of creating a doll representing a child with a disability With funding from her business, a lucrative Kickstarter campaign, and sponsorships., Dolls for Downs was born.
The mission, to create a doll for children with Down Syndrome and other disabilities and to promote creativity and inclusion was an enormous success. Dolls sold across the globe. Connie and Dolls for Downs were featured on local news outlets in Pittsburgh, on the Today Show, ABC News, and internationally in the Toronto Star, Yahoo News, HuffPost, and the Daily Mail. This project helped Connie realize her true passion, to provide for the disability community more meaningfully.
In 2019, after being inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records, as part of the World's Largest Cookie Table, Connie combined her love of baking with her spirit for enterprise. In 2022, she opened a brick-and-mortar, homemade cookie, and ice cream parlor in Kennedy Township, PA. Cookie-cookie Ice Cream is partnering with several agencies to assist adults with disabilities in gaining meaningful employment skills.
Connie Feda's vision and entrepreneurship shines through the community.