Please consider making a donation to the Ear Community Organization during the giving months

The months of November and December are the most important months for nonprofits as these are the giving months. Please help support our Ear Community Organization as your charity of choice by making a donation before the end of this year.

There are many ways that you can donate:
– AmazonSmile is helping give back to nonprofits when you shop. You can help Ear Community by selecting our charity every time you shop online at Amazon. Here’s Ear Community’s direct link: smile.amazon.com/ch/46-0923897.
– Giving Tuesday is November 27th for all nonprofits where people all over our nation donate to their favorite charity organizations.
– Colorado Gives Day is Tuesday, December 4th. Here is Ear Community’s direct link for families in Colorado who would like to give back in our state:
https://www.coloradogives.org/EarCommunity/overview

You can help organize a Facebook fund raiser simply by posting the following link for Ear Community: https://fb.com/fund/EarCommunity/

You can make a donation directly through our Ear Community website via our secure link:
https://earcommunity.org/donate/
– You can also mail a check to Ear Community’s PO Box.

Many employers also enjoy matching contributions through the business office you work for in order to help maximize a donation to a charity you love.
____________________________________________
This was one of the busiest years yet for Ear Community!
Here are the amazing things Ear Community achieved that helped the Microtia and Atresia community in 2018!

– We started off the year in February by traveling to the FDA where (5) of our community members shared our stories about living with Microtia and Atresia during a listening session in hopes of a better option for a reconstructed ear via stem cell regeneration and 3D printing.

– Ear Community participated as an organization at the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Resource Night for Parents and Students for one of the local school districts here in Denver. Over 100 people attended and families were able to learn more about the options for Microtia and Atresia. There were over 10 children who attended that night with their families who had Microtia and Atresia.

– Ear Community attended the EHDI meeting during March in Denver, CO for the 4th year now. This year, Ear Community received the Family Leadership award for EHDI Excellence. (Early Hearing Detection and Intervention) Ear Community has helped collaborate on writing scripts for hospitals to use to help newborn families when they have children born with Microtia and Atresia during the newborn hearing screening process. Ear Community helps educate and update audiologists, speech therapists, teachers, and families at the EHDI meeting and so many are always so happy to see us there!

– Also in March, Ear Community attended the Oticon Medical Ambassador meeting to learn more about Ponto and its accessories.

– From February to May, Ear Community helped organize an ice skating program for D/HH children in kindergarten through college aged where these children were given the opportunity to learn how to ice skate thanks to a grant that the Columbine Figure Skating club received through Prudential. In addition to Ear Community, the Apex Recreational Center, Rocky Mountain Deaf School, and US Figure Skating all collaborated to make this program possible for these children. In May, these children were able to skate in the spring ice show! There were (4) children who participated from area schools that had Microtia and Atresia.

– In April, Board Member, Scott Newcomb, and Melissa Tumblin, participated in a fair at the Colorado State Capital as a local nonprofit organization. We spoke with state professionals as they visited our booth about what Microtia and Atresia is, but most importantly we met with a few members who focus on hearing device care and coverage for our state. This was a great opportunity to be in front of them for this reason alone.

– In May, Ear Community presented a webinar through Continued.com and AudiologyOnline.com called “Unilateral Hearing Loss: Advocating for Children through Early Intervention Services and in the Classroom” where medical professionals can obtain medical credit for taking this course. Thank you to Oticon Medical, Continued.com, and AudiologyOnline for making this course possible and by helping sponsor this course that helps educate families and medical professionals. Here is the link to the course.
Ear Community has created and presented multiple educational presentations since 2013.

In June, the Ear Community founder’s daughter’s donated lots of new toys, dress up clothes (some from the girls’ closet), books, puzzles, coloring books, hula hoops and balls, and many games to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Microtia and Atresia Clinic for the kids clinic and for use during the annual conference.

– On June 10th, Ear Community had it’s first Walk4Hearing team organized in Colorado in which about 30 of us participated in the HLAA’s walk for hearing loss. While Ear Community has multiple teams across our nation participate in these walks, this was the first time for a Colorado team (thanks to Audra Scott and her family). Each one of these teams is organized by a family or medical professional/facility who wants to help raise funds for both the HLAA and Ear Community while enjoying the day, helping raise awareness and being supportive to loved ones who have hearing loss and Microtia and Atresia.

– During the summer months (with planning beginning in January), Ear Community hosted another (7) successful family picnics, bringing Microtia and Atresia families together and medical professionals (nearly 1,000 people) in Sacramento, California/ El Paso, Texas/ Cincinnati, Ohio/ Nashville, Tennessee/ Charleston, South Carolina/ Hamilton, Ontario – Canada and Johannesburg, South Africa!

– During the summer months, Ear Community’s Founders, Melissa and Ally Tumblin, were given the opportunity to demo all of the latest bone conduction hearing devices that are available on the United States market.  The Cochlear Americas Baha 5 and SoundArc.  The Oticon Medical Ponto 3 Superpower.  The Med-EL ADHEAR.  And, the Medtronic Alpha 2 E+.

– On June 20th, Ear Community attended a Hearing Health seminar that Cochlear Americas hosted to learn more about Baha 5 and SoundArc.

– On July 14th, Ear Community board members, Scott Newcomb and family and the Tumblin Family hosted a fund raiser at Avery Brewing Co. in Boulder where we educated about Microtia and Atresia.

– On July 21st, Ear Community collaborated with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Microtia and Atresia educational conference with our 3rd Annual Ear community picnic taking place in Nashville, TN. Ear Community is proud to have helped establish and be a part of the Vanderbilt Microtia and Atresia Clinic for Microtia and Atresia families.

– On August 30th, Ear Community was informed that we FINALLY received a grant toward conducting genetic research on why Microtia and Atresia happen. We have been applying for grants for the past few years and grants are NOT easy to get. With the help of Harvard Medical School/Seidman Labs and MIT, through the Broad Institute, and the Gabriela Miller Kids First Foundation, we are excited to receive help with genetic sequencing of the Microtia and Atresia samples we have and can obtain from families who have signed up at our picnics since last year. We hope to understand more about Microtia and Atresia and we also hope to find out why Microtia happens and to finally prove if it is genetic or not. We would not be conducting this research if it weren’t for Ear Community initiating this request. Thank you to the doctors and researchers in our community who are all helping with this research in many areas!

The Microtia Awareness Ribbon

– On November 9th, Ear Community families and medical professionals from all over enjoyed raising awareness about Microtia and Atresia, helping educate, and spreading kindness while coming together at events and at meet ups and hosting/attending educational clinics on National Microtia Awareness Day! This year was amazing and warms our hearts each year at how many families enjoy a day like NMAD, “Little Ear Day,” or your child’s name day. 🙂 We love seeing families happy and that is what it is about! 💙👂💙 This was our third year raising awareness on National Microtia Awareness Day with people all over the world. This day was meant to help bring the community together and help celebrate our children.

– This year is our 8th Annual Secret Santa that our support group has held for families all over the world to participate in. This event is for children and adults who have Microtia and Atresia. Since 2010, we have put smiles on hundreds of kids (and some adults) helping connect them during Christmas time.

– For the year 2018, we had two students apply for college scholarships and we proudly awarded (2) college scholarships, totaling (10) scholarships being awarded since 2012 with Camilla Gilbert being our first college scholarship recipient.

– By the end of this year, Ear Community will have donated (13) hearing devices (we are awaiting for two more fittings). Each hearing device application is always reviewed by our board of members and voted on, together.

– Throughout the year, we are busy meeting with families individually, via e-mail, or over the phone, helping with IEP and 504 Plans and attending school meetings, helping families fight for insurance coverage for their hearing devices, participating on conference calls with the many patient advocacy councils our organization belongs to and on conference calls with the organizations we help work along side and sit on advisory boards for. We often help out with circulating petitions to help with Medicare coverage or for hearing device coverage. We manage (6) online support groups, helping families everyday. We present at conferences. We would attend more conferences and trade shows if we could financially. We are also on the phone looking for audiologists to help donate their time to help fit and program the hearing devices our organization donates. We are also helping coordinate our events own which take a lot of time, handle and process paperwork, and carry out many other duties that an organization is required to do in order to run successfully and exist as a 501c3 in good standing. All of this is made possible each year (give or take an event or two) thanks to the love, passion, and efforts of multiple families who sit on Ear Community’s board and who run the organization and to our amazing sponsors and donors who help make this all possible for the Microtia and Atresia community. Before Ear Community, most of this was not possible. Most importantly, Ear Community allows families to learn, to connect, to celebrate their children and adults, and to have a community to belong to. We love our families and no one will ever be alone because they have all of us!
– This is why Ear Community exists.

Thank you for your support and for giving back to our organization each year. Small grass roots nonprofits struggle to survive. Especially, the nonprofits with rare causes like ours. We appreciate each one of you and everyone is always welcome in our community.
Ear Community
www.EarCommunity.org/donate