November 9th, 2025Thank you to everyone who embraced National Microtia and Atresia Awareness Day on November 9th all over the world this year! This year was a little extra special because it marks a decade of promoting awareness and education since establishing our awareness day! This year was also special because Ear Community turned 15 years old and my daughter, Ally, turned sweet 16!
This year, we had another wonderful event in California for our microtia community! Our community member, Elizabeth Desloge, has headed this event up for the past 10 years for our community along with her incredible team that has helped her put this special day on each NMAAD: Allison Ashley-Mennis, Christine Bayan, & Rachel Fitzgerald! ❤️Our special day was also made possible by Cochlear Americas, Oticon Medical and our Ear Community Organization, including a shout out to the Los Alamitos Fire Department and Police Department
for making the day fun and educational when it comes to heroes and safety! Thank you so much to Elizabeth, Christine, Rachel and Allison and the kids and family members involved for always wanting to bring our California community together in Orange County on our special community day!
We always enjoy hearing about children spreading awareness and education in the school classroom doing presentations about their missing ears, new ears, hearing loss and about the ear and we had lots of shout outs from many medical professionals, community organizations and our sponsors from all over the globe! We even received a post honoring or our awareness day and support of Ally’s Act from Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan’s office! A special thank you to Errin Cecil-Smith from Congresswoman Houlahan’s office for taking the time to learn more about our awareness day, our community and about
Ally and Ally’s Act with me over the phone. Errin immediately wanted to share about our rare cause and Ally’s Act and Ally and offered to make a beautiful post on behalf of Congresswoman Houlahan and her office. We LOVE the graphics! Our organization also hosted a memorable Zoom dedicated to Moms on our 10th awareness day, which was very emotional and heartwarming for all of us to come together and compare notes on our journeys! These three incredible mom advocates, Lindsey McDevitt, Megan Mitchell and Laura Sinnott, who have children different ages spanning from 1 year of age to 47 years of age, proudly shared what their experiences have been like to learning how to navigate the journey with microtia and atresia and how to be there for other moms and families – priceless!
It was a wonderful week long celebration for everyone embracing our rare cause on our special community day that continues being celebrated all month long! My favorite photos and tags we receive are of the children presenting in their classrooms, excited to share and educate about microtia and atresia and also about getting new ears and all about hearing loss! I love how so many are finding self acceptance and love during our special day. They are all so inspiring and brave!
I would like to share two stories of our community members that make Microtia and Atresia Awareness Day the meaningful day it is. This year, our first story is of Bevie educating her class on microtia and her bone anchored hearing device for her aural atresia. Bevie has not only advocated on Capitol Hill for Ally’s Act alongside her mom, Jennifer, but Bevie’s birthday happens to be on November 9th! Bevie celebrated her birthday at school and educated her class on her sweet little ear and her bone anchored hearing device! Jennifer said Bevie was SO EXCITED and she even wore her glasses that fit over her head that she received at our picnic we had in Virginia this summer through our organization’s Pax’s Ear Fund. She calls her birthday “little ear day”! It’s stories like this and children like Bevie,
that are behind our special community awareness day each year. Jennifer said Bevie was absolutely beaming and her class was so excited to learn more about microtia and atresia and her bone anchored hearing device! Age 5 – wow! ![]()
Here is our second beautiful story for this year. I would like to share about my new friend, Janine Rivera, and about her finding our community and happiness within!
attended our Atlanta picnic, she not only was overcome by emotion, but she found herself in a community that felt like family! Janine spent the day carrying babies around who also had microtia and atresia! She learned about her options, including about hearing devices and prosthetic ears! To Janine’s surprise, she thought her left ear didn’t work until she tried on the ADHEAR by MED-EL and realized she could hear!
Close to our awareness day this year, Janine texted me a beautiful message that said “Look what I got yesterday!” Janine had a prosthetic ear and she was absolutely glowing in her picture!!!! After having a consultation with anaplastologist, Dr. Amanda Behr, of Augusta University, she decided to get a prosthetic ear! Janine said she left Dr. Behr’s office with her hair up in a ponytail for the first time! She decided to leave her hair up when she and her husband went out to dinner and said “Never in my life had I had my hair all pulled back!”
Janine discovered herself all over again at our Ear Community picnic that day in Atlanta! She found others just like her! She learned about her options and she found happiness! In addition, Janine loves her new ear and has even added ear cuffs to help her shine even more!
We are grateful to all of the organizations, medical professionals, teachers and parents who embrace our special awareness day for our microtia and atresia community! Hearing device organizations like Oticon Medical have always embraced our special day where the office makes it a special day for everyone through education about microtia and atresia and also a day to be grateful for the company’s technology that helps so many in our community hear better through a bone anchored hearing device. The staff at Oticon Medical always embraces our day with everything blue including cupcakes to make NMAAD extra special! A special thank you to Brendalys Trinidad for always organizing and making sure this is one of the best awareness day embraced and celebrated by everyone at Oticon Medical, including both the Denmark and US offices. Its the moments like this and the memories created that make Microtia and Atresia Awareness Day something more than I could have ever imagined for our community! Our awareness day is a day of sharing journeys, finding confidence and self acceptance, but it is also a day of love and support and celebrating birthdays and education about our
beautiful community members! Just like our Ear Community Organization, Microtia and Atresia Awareness Day has changed lives and saved lives! We also enjoy the posts sent in of animals with missing ears and how their families specifically had to have them because of missing their ear! We think these animals are extra cute! We are a community that is on this same journey together, no matter how different or similar it is for each of our families, but we are in this together – we are community! Thank you to all who made our day special this year and every year on November 9th! ![]()
Here are some wonderful memories from our decade of promoting awareness and education about Microtia and Atresia on our special awareness day!
Melissa Tumblin
Ear Community
- Screenshot





















































































































































































The Hearing Matters Podcast with Blaise Delfino aired today, December 3rd, 2025, sharing my story about advocacy for Ally and the Ear Community Organization as well as our push for Ally’s Act, H.R. 4606 to pass!
Today is Giving Tuesday!
MED-EL USA announces the launch of the 2026 IDEASforEARS children’s invention contest
There are (4) grades of Microtia and Aural Atresia:
5. Bone Anchored Hearing Devices/Bone Conduction Implant Systems – these are specific bone conduction systems that aid conductive hearing loss and are often the only specialized hearing devices individuals with Microtia and Aural Atresia can benefit from due to missing ears.














discovered that he had worked for the same company (StorageTek) that both my husband and his father worked for years ago. We knew people in common and all about the technology. A conversation that resonated with me and that was just the beginning. Crazy how years later, a rare cause and a small nonprofit would connect us on opposite sides of the US. Small world it is, Sean, and I am grateful for you!





















Once Alida knew she wanted to help give back, she reached out to our Ear Community Organization as a member of our community. She knew exactly what she wanted to do and began planning for and organizing the 5K run/walk in her hometown. From gathering sponsors, to creating her own fliers and t-shirt designs, to speaking on local podcasts to asking the City of Tremont for help – Alida had a plan! Did I mention that Alida is only 20 years old! For months, Alida wondered how many people would show up, worried it would only be a handful of people who would turn out as the race date neared. Finally, on Saturday, July 19th, it was Alida’s big day to bring the community together and she was ready! Alida and help began setting up for the race around 5:30 AM that morning! Alida’s amazing family and friends helped set up the entire course while she focused on some last-minute details. To Alida’s surprise – 161 walkers/runners signed registered for the race! Of course it rained, but for most of the race it was perfect weather! About 89 people ran the race. The runners had chips on their running bibs, so Alida could see how many actually came to the race. She had volunteers of all ages offer to help, which was so inspiring to see! Alida’s Great Aunt, who is 80 years old, helped pass out water to runners at the one-mile mark! The Tremont Police Department donated their time and services to provide officers to guide runners at intersections! Tremont Rescue had two responders (Megan Harley, Paul Molden & Chief Trent Steiner) volunteer standby for runners during the race, stationed at both the start and finish lines! And, Tremont Area Park District (Bryan Cheek, Director) donated the park pavilion during the race where participants could be sheltered from the rain and where the awards ceremony took place.
One of the highlights of Alida’s day was having two other individuals with microtia and atresia at the race! One of them traveled all the way from Florida to be there! The other Alida had just met a couple of weeks earlier at a restaurant. It meant the world to share this experience with them! Not only was this day so special for Alida and her family and for all of the runners and walkers who participated, including so many from her home town who stepped up to help and donate their time and services, but Alida raised nearly $15,000.00 with her event thanks to registered walkers and runners and other donors, including the runners and walkers who shared about this event asking others to help donate to our cause. Incredible!!!! Alida even had awards made and certificates, including making sure that first place received a special bracelet that was donated thanks to Brad and Kathy of U
are such an incredible person with such a big heart wanting to make a difference and to help raise funds so no other child or adult has to do without a hearing device. Thank you for everything and for your family who supported you the entire way! Thank you for raising funds for our Ear Community Organization so we can continue to help even more children and adults who were born with microtia and atresia!






























