If you can’t afford hearing aids but need them, you may still be able to get them if you qualify. The Foundation for Sight & Sound is partnering with leading hearing-aid manufacturer ReSound to beef up its Help America Hear Program to provide more free hearing aids and proper hearing-aid fittings to people who can’t afford them. ReSound, the exclusive supplier of hearing aids to the program, has donated hundreds of pairs of hearing aids for people who meet financial eligibility requirements after applying on the Help America Hear web site.
The hearing aid industry manufacturers often define their work as a social mission to improve people’s lives by improving their ability to socialize and communicate. But it’s often hard to reconcile the claim that they are on a social mission when so many of their products are priced so high that only the very wealthiest of world’s consumers can afford them. Their social credibility would be higher if more manufacturers put their money where their mouth is by making a real effort to give something back, like ReSound and another notable example, Starkey Laboratories. Starkey Labs founder William Austen, whose Starkey Hearing Foundation has led the way for many years by raising millions of dollars to fund the donation of of hearing aids to tens of thousand of people around the world, says his foundation gives away 100,000 hearing aids a year, compared to the 1 million hearing aids sold annually by Starkey Labs: “It’s 10 percent, so it’s like tithing,” he told the Clark, County, WA, Columbian in an interview last Fall.
And the opportunity to give back doesn’t end with the manufacturers. There are millions of hearing aids sitting unused in bureau drawers around the world. Many of them could be reconditioned and provide a needy person with the gift of hearing. If you have a pair gathering dust in your drawer, you can donate them to Starkey’s Hear Now program. Another hearing aid manufacturer, America Hears, in the past has offered discounts to consumers who trade in their hearing aids and donates the used aids to a Rotary International Foundation program, Help the Children Hear.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by DeafRead, G. Cordova. G. Cordova said: ReSounds donates hearing aids to Help America Hear program http://ht.ly/3J34X #hearingloss #deaf […]