Weinberg Gift to Provide Hearing Aids and Services to Older Adults in Baltimore
The Hearing and Speech Agency was honored with a Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Employee Giving Program gift of $10,000 on July 26, 2011 along with 14 other nonprofit organizations. HASA was nominated for the gift by Yvonne Sporrer, a Weinberg Foundation staff member.
The award, presented at a luncheon at the Pier V Hotel, was accepted by Susan Glasgow, Executive Director. She announced that the donation will help provide audiology services and hearing aids to older adults who are hard of hearing.
Some astounding facts
- Eighteen percent of adults in the United States experience hearing difficulty.
- Hearing loss can interfere with education, employment opportunities and interpersonal communication and many elderly people struggle with isolation, health care and depression.
- Audiologic rehabilitation promotes successful hearing aid use and improves communication and psychosocial functioning, but many elderly people can't afford treatment.
- Hearing aids have proven effective in alleviating the communicative and psychosocial consequences of hearing loss in adults.
- Effects are most pronounced in the areas of social, emotional and communicative function and remain one year after sustained hearing aid use.
- Hearing aids represent a relatively inexpensive intervention for the amount of benefit gained.