Sara Slater’s world is coming through loud and clear these days thanks to a gift from the Penticton Elks Lodge.
The 14-year-old, grade eight student received $2,500 towards the purchase of two state-of-the-art hearing aids, only the second pair she has had since receiving the first ones when she was just five years old.
Sara and her mom Chrissy Slater visited the Elks Lodge #51 Saturday to pick up the cheque and express their appreciation.
“I just can’t say how grateful we are for your contribution it’s really helped us, we were able to put a little bit towards it but you guys topped that off and made it possible so thank you,” Chrissy told Elks Lodge members Jeannine Johnson and John Yazlovasky.
Sara too said “thank you,” adding that: “I like them cause they have Bluetooth so i can connect them to my iPod and listen to my music and it’s cool, I really like them. They’re smaller too and lots of people can’t really see them when I put my hair up.”
Chrissy first started noticing problems when Sara was two but it wasn’t until she turned five and had a hearing screening test done, the impairment was realized.
“The kindergarten teacher called me and I said; ‘Oh you must have the wrong child’ and she said no it’s Sara and I then I went and saw her (teacher) and then we had a second opinion and a third opinion,” she said. “Sara’s other hearing aids were Phonak (brand) as well but they were, well, when she’s five you pick out the cute ones so she picked these grey zebra print ones and they were quite big.
“This is very important for her, especially at school because when you can’t hear the curriculum your not gaining knowledge.”
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For their part, the Elks Lodge members were very happy to assist.
“That’s our motto, we help children from age birth to 19, hearing and speech are part of our program in fact we have a unit in Surrey that is world renowned,” said Yazlovasky.
“We’re quite proud of it and we’re proud to help this young lady. It’s just fantastic.”
The funds are made possible through the generosity and support of the Elks through their National Charity of the Elks and Royal Purple Fund for Children.
In 2017 the Penticton lodge contributed $5,000 to the Children’s Fund.
“we are thrilled that one of the local Penticton families will benefit,” said Penticton Elks secretary Lorri Kidd.