The Walking Effect

The difference between Walk4Hearing and Walk for ASL?

Walk4Hearing involves the community on a much larger scale with thousands of people every year in 22 different cities from June through October. The local media reporting in each city help generate more public awareness about hearing loss. It's a public relation dream machine. Walk for ASL on the other hand involves 15 culturally deaf people who will walk for 30 days from San Francisco to Santa Monica, California with the hope that their actions and message will capture the attention of the media.

Walk4Hearing is again raising money and has a very successful formula since 2006 because approximately 1 out 8 Americans with hearing loss have something that they can relate to each other with a common condition. There are many more hearing parents, friends and families who know someone with a hearing loss.  It could be their grandpa who experienced hearing loss later in his life. Or have a deaf or hard of hearing brother or a sister. A parent with a hearing loss. A hearing person whose best friend wears a hearing aid. A next door neighbor whose teenager experienced hearing loss from Meningitis.  Hearing loss is such a common condition in the United States the majority of the population are familiar with it. And because of the familiarity about hearing loss they become much more approachable about auditory-oral education, hearing aids, cochlear implants, or implantable hearing device that uses the eardrum as a natural microphone. No wonder auditory-oral schools are succeeding in their public relation efforts with their communities.

In its first year in 2006 the Walk4Hearing raised over $300,000. Since 2006 they have raised several million dollars. In 2011 Walk4Hearing successfully raised $1.1 million dollars in a matter of months. In 2012 they surpassed the $1.2 million dollar mark. This year their goal is to raise $1.4 million dollars and so far they are 24% of their goal with $336,000 raised already and they are on track to surpass the $1.4 million dollar mark before the first walk to start in June of this year.

Money raised is shared between national and local programs and services including support of children with hearing loss at www.kidsandhearingloss.org.

National Programs and Services    

• Provide timely and reliable information about hearing loss through HLAA’s website, Hearing Loss Magazine, HLAA e-News, the Hearing Loss Support Specialist Training, message boards/chat forums and annual conventions
• Advocacy at the national level to affect legislation that impacts people with hearing loss, whether it’s funding for hearing aids, cochlear implants, communication access in public places or other important issues
• A nationwide network of chapters and state organizations providing peer support
• Support for parents of children with hearing loss at www.kidsandhearingloss.org
• Outreach to veterans returning with hearing loss
• Social networking site for young adults with hearing loss at www.hearinglossnation.org

Local Programs and Services    

• Captioning and hearing assistive technology at HLAA chapter meetings to make them accessible
• Scholarships toward college tuition for students with hearing loss
• Funding for hearing aids and assistive listening devices for people who cannot afford them
• Installation of hearing assistive technology in public places, such as community rooms and public libraries
• Captioning of live theater productions
• Seminars on coping with hearing loss

The www.kidsandhearingloss.org website is to help

empower parents of hard of hearing and/or deaf children by providing the resources necessary for them to make informed decisions about their children’s hearing loss.

Below is a Walk4Hearing video promotion with subtitles.




Walk for ASL is a new venture idea to help raise awareness and seek funding for their own agenda and cause. It only actively involve 15 deaf people who will walk in California the 600 miles from San Francisco to Santa Monica in 30 days along the Pacific Coast Highway. Their goal is to get the attention of the media.

The difference here is that ASL and deaf culture are essentially a hidden language and community. They are more apparent in large cities such as Washington D.C.; Rochester, NY; Seattle, WA; and Austin, TX. Even in large cities the bulk of hearing people go about their daily lives and never get to meet or see a signing deaf person in their life. And for a good reason because the culturally deaf community make up about 0.2% (0.002) of the total population in the United States. The chance to meet a signing deaf person or a deaf group would be quite small. It becomes harder for hearing people to even sympathize with such a small deaf community when they try and raise awareness on ASL, a language and culture that are totally foreign to most of the hearing society. They might hear about signing deaf people in the news on rare occasions or by chance see a deaf character in a television show. But to the hearing society the language and culture of deaf people are still completely foreign to them.

Below is a Walk for ASL video promotion but no subtitles or transcript available.