Message to HLAA Chapters from the Executive Director
This Fall Brings Lots of Events including Remembering Founder’s Day
This November 27, 2020, marks our organization’s founding in 1979. Founder Rocky Stone began our organization as Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, a moniker of the times when the self-help movement was gaining ground. The first SHHH Chapter was established in Gainesville, Georgia.
The philosophy envisioned back then is still alive today – gather all the information you can to make your own decisions about your hearing health (“self-help”), then turn around and help others. This is in practice in HLAA Chapters across the country where you provide information and peer-to-peer support.
Founder’s Day, or Founder’s Month, was typically commemorated by our chapters across the country. You held special events, celebrations, and often fundraisers to raise money for the national office in honor of Rocky and Ahme Stone and all the chapter leaders who came before you. The funds went directly to the costs of running chapters at the national office. Chapters are at the heart of our mission.
This November, not too many of our chapters are having in-person meetings let alone social events. We are in difficult times and we hope you’re all healthy and, if possible, holding virtual meetings, or staying connected some other way. You can still mark Founder’s Day with a story in your newsletters, in an email blast to your community, or during one of your virtual meetings.
Our hope for the future is to support HLAA Chapters with resources to hold hearing-friendly virtual meetings. We plan to make it easier for you to become chapters and get all the information you need on our website. This takes a lot of work and funds to support staffing and technology, but we are committed to HLAA Chapters.
If you want a walk down memory lane, read our history. You’ll be amazed at what we’ve accomplished together in the last 41 years.
Thank you for all your work in communities across the country where you keep the HLAA mission fully alive!
Kind regards,
Barbara Kelley
Executive Director
This Fall
Walk4Hearing. Check out the HLAA Walk4Hearing where anyone can tune in for one our virtual Walks and share the fun. Please sign up to get the Zoom link. This Sunday is the Chicago and New York City Walk4Hearing events.
Fall 2020 Fundraising Challenge. This is our first national fundraiser this year as we decided not to make a spring appeal during COVID. News on the Fall Challenge will come.
Survey – Need Your Input. Look for a survey in your email this month. We want to know how you fared during COVID and find out some of your preferences. Your input is valuable.
Free, captioned webinars. Check the schedule, includes playbacks.
Sign up for the free online e-News, if you haven’t already. Encourage others to do the same.
Join HLAA. Receive our magazine, Hearing Life.