Listening to your heartWilloughby Hearing Aid Centers find perspective in outreach to children |
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She was 9 years old. She’d had little hearing since birth. “She had never heard her mother’s voice, had never spoken a word,” says Scott Austin. “I fitted her with a hearing aid and within five minutes, she was speaking to her mother. There was not a dry eye for any of us. “It changed my life forever. It gives you real perspective on what’s important in life.”
That was on a service trip to Mexico, one of many made by Austin, who is president and partner in Willoughby Hearing Aid Centers. And similar life-changing moments happened two or three times for every person on that trip with the Sharkey Hearing Foundation, including Austin’s partner, Paul Willoughby, and Paul’s son, Sam. Back in Oregon, Austin and Willoughby looked at similar needs here. “We wanted to find out how we could reach out and help the kids in our own backyard,” Austin says. The first idea was a home run. Literally. In partnership with the Portland Beavers, Willoughby Hearing Aid Centers stepped up to the plate with “Homeruns for Hearing Aids.” For every game in which the Beavers hit a home run, Willoughby donates a hearing aid to a local child with both hearing and financial needs. The Beaver bats have been good for hearing impaired children. In two years, Willoughby Hearing Aid Centers has donated more than 135 hearing aids, worth nearly $90,000. Needing a way to connect with children, Willoughby partnered with KEX radio’s Kids Fund, which identified local children in need. KEX Kids Fund had been purchasing hearing aids for $800 apiece. It’s very rewarding to be able to give them without charge, Austin says. One third of the donated hearing aids goes to children throughout the state through the Oregon Lions Sight & Hearing Foundation. And some go to children in Southwest Washington through the Washington State School for the Deaf in Vancouver. In addition to helping children, the program provides staff at Willoughby Hearing Aid Centers with a sample of the special feeling Austin and his partners got in Mexico. “I just got a call from a dispenser in our Gresham office,” Austin says. “He thanked me over and over for giving him the opportunity to have that experience.” |
For more about Willoughby Hearing Aid Centers’ community commitment, visit their web site.
Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation
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