Ear Community exhibits at the 2024 EHDI Meeting in Denver, CO

We always have attendees who search for our booth looking to find out the latest information and options for microtia and atresia. We had parents attend, some even wore their Ear Community Microtia and Atresia Kids Rock t-shirts, which was awesome to see! Thank you to the organizations at EHDI who also endorse Ally’s Act, H.R. 2439/S. 1135! It was great seeing our organization’s Sponsors too (Cochlear Americas and MED-EL USA)! It was wonderful seeing so many friends and familiar faces and also new friends too!

Thank you to Caitlin Hurst, Melissa McClellan, Natasha Irwin Rich, Elizabeth M Desloge and Keesha Pfeiffer for all joining us in our booth as parents of microtia and atresia kids! Elizabeth hosts our National Microtia and Atresia Awareness Day event each year in California and Natasha will be our Florida picnic host this June in collaboration with Nemours Children’s Health. Melissa McClellan is an amazing past board member of Ear Community who has enjoyed attending EHDI over the years with us and Caitlin and Melissa educated their hearts out about microtia and atresia! We had a special surprise – Caitlin and I discovered both of our kids had the same amazing teachers for speech during school over the years even though they are 6 years apart (Carm and Jeannine stopped by to see us)! We had audiologists and early intervention specialists who came to EHDI just to see us, especially audiologists who were born with microtia and atresia! We had a family attend coming all the way from Hawaii who visited with Caitlin as they both have had outer ear reconstruction with their kids and Dr. Tahiri Plastic Surgery! We shared about our picnic schedule with attendees to our booth along with the programs and work our organization offers as well! Ear Community is also proud to always include our children by honoring them in the booth with their pictures too! The last time Ear Community exhibited with EHDI in Denver in 2018, our organization’s Founder, Melissa Tumblin, was the recipient of the EHDI Family Leadership in Excellence Award!