September is Deaf Awareness Month and this article from The Free Press in Jacksonville, N.C., explains one woman's education efforts in Deep Run, N.C.:
DEEP RUN, N.C. - Deep Run's Heather Hardison (pictured) doesn't live in the "hearing world" like most of the people she encounters during her daily routine.
Hardison, 33, has lived in a "deaf world" - as she describes it - since she was born. Growing up, many of her elementary school classmates rejected her because she was different. Hardison has used her success story to educate and raise awareness of deaf issues in her Lenoir County community.
Nationwide, deaf and hard of hearing people still face challenges in their daily lives.
Hardison said she still gets awkward stares from the public when they first learn that she is deaf, but her husband, Cliff, offers support and assistance.
"I taught him how to use sign language," she said. "He helps interpret at our church."
As a Kinston native, Hardison attended a local elementary school in the early 1980s, where her grades were poor and her classmates ridiculed her for being deaf. She was taken out of the school at the age of seven.
Hardison began to excel after enrolling at the School for the Deaf in Wilson. Later she studied business administration at Pitt Community College. Today she resides in Deep Run with her family.
"I made it," Hardison said, regarding the challenges she faced as a deaf child. "I learned to speak with my hands and read lips."
September marks Deaf Awareness Month nationwide. The Wilson Regional Center for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing hosted an event at East Carolina University on Thursday night. The event featured a Public Broadcasting System documentary "Through Deaf Eyes," which chronicled experiences of being deaf in America.
About 80 people attended the event at ECU, including Wilson Community College student Carolyn Bowens. Bowens is also a volunteer at the Wilson Regional Center and School for the Deaf in Wilson.
"My cousin is deaf," Bowens said. "I decided to enroll in Wilson Community College's interpreter program because I have always wanted to learn how to do sign language."
Today there are several communication aids that provide aid for the deaf population. Hardison uses a video phone to talk with her interpreter.
"It's like a three-way call," she said. "The interpreter asks the store clerk questions or tells them what I want for me when I sign."
Help is also on the way from the State Highway Patrol and from the Department of Social Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, who are developing vehicle visor cards and wallet cards for deaf people.
"Sometimes there is confusion when police officers stop a deaf person and they can't communicate with each other," Hardison said. "The card will notify the officer the person stopped is deaf or hard of hearing."
Hardison plans to provide her sign language interpreting skills to First Baptist Church of Kinston next week. She will help sign for a children's class. However, more sign language interpreters are needed in Lenoir County, she said.
"Deaf awareness month has been very successful," Wilson Regional Center Manager Stephanie Johnson said. "We help people with varying degrees of hearing loss and support others like Heather Hardison who is building awareness."
The Wilson Regional Center provides deaf and hard of hearing people with both tangible and non-tangible services. Recently, the center began providing its customers with weather alert radios that have strobe lights and shake a sleeping person's bed to alert them to hazardous weather conditions.
"They will not sleep through bad weather," Johnson said.
