Sara Wolff is perched on the brick wall of a balcony overlooking a leafy metropolis.

Looking Amelia Earhart-esque, she has on a red sweater with a red scarf billowing behind her and she’s holding a bullhorn.

Sujeet Desai is sitting atop an exotic wooden four-poster bed. He has a safari hat on his lap, and an old-fashioned suitcase and a monkey are behind him.

Wolff and Desai are the poster images for the National Down Syndrome Society’s new campaign, “My Great Story.” The point is to honor the 400,000 Americans who have Down syndrome.

The Down Syndrome Association of Northeast Indiana is doing the same throughout March, which is also Disabilities Awareness Month. It is an effort to offer a new way of thinking about people with Down syndrome.

And just like Wolff and Desai, three local young adults with Down syndrome have stories to tell.

Mitch Meyer

Mitch Meyer dreams big.

He dreams of getting his driver’s license. He has studied the driver’s manual for three years. He wants a Dodge, he says.

He wants to coach basketball. He’d start small and ideally work up to coaching at the collegiate level, he says.

He wants to own his own business – a factory or a garage.

He wants to move out of his parents’ house. But he’ll stay in Monroeville, to live near his family.

As the 26-year-old describes his goals, father Louie just watches him, smiling.

Mitch was homecoming king in high school. He played percussion in the school band and was the student manager of the baseball, basketball and football teams.

He still attends every game at his alma mater, sitting in the student section. The students all know him, his father says, and they like to give him high-fives.

“He is very popular,” Louie says. “You can’t go to a game without seeing him in the front row.”

Mitch recently lost 40 pounds. His waist used to be 40 inches. Now it’s 30.

He gave up Doritos for Lent last year and hasn’t touched them since.

Louie shows a stranger some photos of his son when he was overweight. Mitch gets embarrassed. “Daaaaad!”

Mitch works two part-time jobs.

He works with a man who is blind at CME Automotive Corp. in Monroeville. His partner is quick with his hands, but he needs Mitch to put the correct parts in each package.

Mitch likes this job for two reasons: One, it’s clean. Two, the employees are nice to him, he says.

He also works at his father’s company, Meyer Auto Sales Inc.

From junior high until graduation, Mitch never missed a day of school. Now, he never misses a day of work. When he’s sick, he works through it.

Michael Peoples

Michael Peoples likes to dance.

He is a member of the Soul Men, a dance group in which the other three group members also have Down syndrome.

The four men perform in dark glasses, suits and black Blues Brothers hats.

The 18-year-old Homestead High School student wants to send his group’s performance tape to “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

He loves to visit Chicago and New York City because he loves musicals, especially “The Lion King,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Jersey Boys.”

As he talks about his favorite things, Michael stands and talks with his hands.

But dancing isn’t his only hobby.

Michael trained for five years to learn how to scuba dive.

His gear is on the kitchen floor. His mother, Sue, asks her son to explain the vest and the equipment.

Sometimes, Michael will look to his mother for the right words, but then he’ll hush her when he can pick back up on the conversation.

Sue allowed Michael to scuba for two reasons: He’s an excellent swimmer, she says, and he can listen to and follow direction.

The last time Michael went diving, he was 14. His mask got a crack in it, filling it with water. He gave the thumbs- up sign, which meant he wanted to surface. His instructor said no because Michael was 27 feet underwater; surfacing too fast could cause an air bubble in his bloodstream, resulting in an embolism.

His instructor was proud of how Michael handled the accident, Sue says; some adults will want to shoot to the surface after a mere trickle of water gets in their faces. Michael had a face full of water, and he still allowed his mother and instructor to ease him out of the water even though he couldn’t see a thing.

Michael says he is scared to scuba again, but Sue is confident that should the family return to the Cayman Islands this summer as planned, he’ll want to get back in the ocean.

Sheryl Sternal

Sheryl Sternal is wearing a Notre Dame football T-shirt. She makes sure to point this out.

It’s obvious she likes sports.

She has been to 30 professional baseball stadiums.

Now, the 30-year-old is going back to hit up the new stadiums that have been built since her last trip, she says.

The plan is to trek to Minnesota to see Target Field at the end of May.

Sheryl went to her first baseball game when she was 1. Her mother, Gerry, tried to rock her to sleep when it got late, but Sheryl stayed awake for the full 18 innings of the night game, Gerry says.

Sheryl has two favorite stadiums. She likes the New York Mets stadium, Citi Field, because of the seating and the funnel cakes – a rarity in a baseball stadium, she says.

She’s also a fan of the San Francisco Giants’ stadium, AT&T Park, because she used to live in San Francisco and once got to watch a game from the announcer’s stand.

Sheryl’s fingernails are painted bright orange for the Fort Wayne Komets.

To show them off, she holds her hands up, fingers spread.

One of her favorite Komets players is Guy Dupuis because he has a son with Down syndrome, and Sheryl is on a board for the Down Syndrome Association of Northeast Indiana with Dupuis’ wife, Sheryl says.

Sheryl’s schedule is packed. It’s difficult to schedule a time to talk about herself.

On Monday, Sheryl worked from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. She walked a treadmill for 35 minutes at the YMCA. She completed chores at home – ironing and taking out the trash, Gerry says. In the evening, she bowled at Crazy Pinz with her friends.

At her job at Anthony Wayne Services, Sheryl wraps color-coded wires to be packaged with electronic games.

If that’s not enough, she has taken ballroom-dancing lessons for 2 1/2 years, Gerry says.

Sheryl likes the classes for the same reason she liked high school – because she gets to see her friends.

jyouhana@jg.net