Hearing Speech & Deaf Center

2825 Burnet Avenue, Suite 330
Cincinnati, OH 45219

Programming for Youth with Communications Disorders and Deafness

The Dater Foundation's $25,000 investment in our programming for Youth with Communication Disorders and Deafness supported multiple programs, activities, and efforts in 2023-2024.

(1) In June 2023, we staged the second annual one-week-long ASL Junior Explorer day camp for youth ages 5 to 12. The camp gives the kiddos a chance to expand their knowledge of American Sign Language. An average of twenty-one youth attended the five-day camp, with daily attendance during the week from 18-24. Campers received 749 hours of programming, with support from paid staff and high school and adult volunteers. Campers included children with hearing loss (some with cochlear implants) and speech disorders. All the campers were interested in understanding and using ASL to communicate. Daily camping included trips to explorers to Blooms and Berries, the Cincinnati Nature Center, Glenwood Gardens, Niederman's Farm, and Parky's Farm. Each day's ASL lesson focussed on words related to features unique to each venue.

(2) The following week (June 12-16), our legacy HSDC Summer Camp took place. This timing proved difficult because of the year-over-year growth in these two summer activities. Our staff and volunteers were stretched. In 2024, we will allow more time between the two camps.

Attendance averaged 26 kiddos and reached 30 attendees on one of the camp days, both records. The camp delivered 896 hours of learning and play over the five-day camp. Destinations included Aullwood Audubon, the Cincinnati Museum Center, Summit Park, and two days at St. Rita's School for the Deaf, which offered ample outdoor space for field games and an indoor gym for weather-related Plan B activities.

(3) In September 2023, your investment supported our initial effort at aiding inclusion and access for deaf and hard-of-hearing youth and their families at the Renaissance Festival in Waynesville. There, over nine hours, 410 neighbors were entertained at select Renaissance Festival performances where on-stage ASL interpreters made the shows accessible to a broader swath of our community. This effort was so successful that we immediately began a discussion with the Renaissance Festival about an expansion of our collaboration in 2024.

(4) Also in September, we conducted speech-language and hearing screenings of 26 pre-K children in collaboration with Learning Grove and Kinder Garden School. Early identification and treatment of communication delays and disorders support the social-emotional health of youth, their early academic success, and beneficial adult outcomes. Your cash investment aided this effort.

(5) The Charles Dater Foundation's philanthropy helped bring about our food drive collaboration with Ohio Valley Voices and St. Rita School for the Deaf in November. We can only benefit a handful of families with food from this joint effort, and you may judge it a small, inconsequential program. But the Lessons in Giving are large for the youth who participate in the collection of food.

(6) Our Winter Wonderland event in December 2023 has grown from a legacy program we called "Signing Santa." To be sure, Santa made an appearance at Winter Wonderland, and he will still communicate in ASL, but the inclusion and access at the 2023 Winter Wonderland reached a level that offers a model across our programs. Your investment allowed us to register 50 children from across all the clinics in our organization to receive a holiday gift, make crafts, decorate cookies, and learn about the wide variety of Holiday Traditions Around the World. Our guests and their families (103 neighbors in all) received "passports," allowing them to navigate an imaginary journey around the world with stops in Africa, China, India, Israel, and Mexico, where they learned about culture and holiday customs. WKRC covered the event, and we posted details across our social media. For example, see https://www.facebook.com/reel/843341044247783

(7) On January 27, 2024, HSDC Night at the Cyclones brought together 43 clients and neighbors (including their family members). Community events like this hearken back to our 1925 founding charter, which called for "social, educational, and recreational activities" that promote the social-emotional well-being of neighbors with communication disorders.



Website: http://www.hearingspeechdeaf.org
Amount: $25,000
Date: July 2023