The funds Play it by Ear raises change lives through the following programs.
Lions Health Screening Unit
This mobile clinic travels 20,000 miles a year across Washington and Northern Idaho to provider free check-ups for hearing, sight, glaucoma, diabetes, and blood pressure. Each year, the Lions Health Screening Unit checks the hering of more than 25,000 schoolchildren like Jason Lee.
Hearing Aid Bank
Provides recycled hearing aids free of charge to people with little to no income who are sponsored by a local Lions Club.
AUDIENT
Provides new hearing aids at a discount to people who have some means to pay but who otherwise could not afford full market price.
Patient Care Grants
We partner with local Lions Clubs to help people who otherwise cannot afford hearing loss treatment ranging from surgeries to amplification equipment. Cassidy's tuition to a school for hearing impaired children was provided by one of these grants.
Project Support Grants
To expand our impact, we award grants to other non-profits in the region who protect and restore hearing. The funds can provide anything from closed captioning technology to screening equipment. One grant opened up a new world of dreams to hearing-impaired children through a special tour of Seattle's Museum of Flight.
Shari's Story
Hearing aid recipient Shari Burns
with guide dog, Nora.
Shari Burns is a decendant of Helen Keller who lives in Bremerton, WA, with guide dog Nora and a toy poodle named Emma.
Shari is blind in her right eye and has limited vision in her left, which made it all the more troubling when she began to lose hearing in her left ear. "I found myself having to tell people: 'Wait a minute. I can see you but I can't hear you,' or 'I can hear you, but I can't see you," she remembers.
Though not the type to focus unduly on her own needs, Shari does recall a moment of sheer despair when informed by her audiologist that the hearing aid she needed would cost somewhere between $2,000-$4,000.
"I told him I couldn't possibly afford that," she remembers. "There's no way on social security."
This time luck was with her. We considered it a privilege to help Shari by providing the hearing aid that she so desperately needed through our AUDIENT program. "I'm not willing to stop living," says Shari. "Now when people invite me to dinner I don't have to turn them down. I'm able to participate in conversations again because I can tell which direction sound is coming from. I can't thank the Lions enough for their kindness."
We feel thankful, too, for this chance to pay tribute in what feels like a very personal way to the very woman who inspired our sight and hearing mission in the first place.
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