Walkers from Team Twitchell on the Riverwalk
Children at the walk
Wanda Threat from the team Queen leads her team
Walkers visit vendor booths
From left: Jerry Hall, Board Certified Hearing Instrument Specialist; Shirley Hall, Zounds Imprezo hearing aids winner; Holly Stephens, Customer Care Specialist & Zounds team captain; Glenn Bird, Zounds owner
From left: Jennifer Carson, director of business development at Beltone with Beltone Promise hearing aids winner Connie Griggs
The Chattanooga 2015 Walk4Hearing has ended and total donations exceeded the $24,000 mark, in part due to the fabulous prizes offered to top fund-raisers. This year, Zounds Hearing and Beltone made the walk special for two lucky winners who would receive a pair of free hearing aids valued at more than $6,000 each. Interestingly enough, the pre-established rules for these two prizes allowed the transferability of the offers to another person should the winner not need the hearing aids. Both prizes were awarded to other people than the initial winner.
Zounds Hearing, a new hearing aid company in the Chattanooga area, owned and operated by Glenn and Betsy Bird, stepped forward early into the campaign by offering a free pair of Zounds Imprezo digital hearing aids to the top individual walker who raised the most money. To be eligible, walkers had to be registered online by a certain date and time. At the deadline, Melody Gonzalez from the Knoxville HLA team was named the winner.
Ms. Gonzalez, a walker on the Knoxville HLA team, resides in Indiana and was unable to accept the prize. Her prize was then awarded to the second top individual walker, Nelda Twitchell, who was raising money in hopes of winning the hearing aids for her good friend, Shirley Wall, who did accept them and is now the proud owner of two top-of-the-line Zounds Imprezo digital hearing aids. Shirley has been busy adjusting to her new hearing aids and enjoying all the sounds she has been missing for quite some time.
Next, Jennifer Carson of Beltone, stepped up and also offered a free pair of Beltone Promise digital hearing aids. Since the top individual walker prize had already been designated, the decision was made to draw the name of one walker who raised $500 or more. Like the other top prize, walkers had to be registered online by the same date and time. At the deadline, there were six eligible walkers.
On the morning of the Walk4Hearing, Ms. Carson drew a name and the winner was Ann Schide from the Friends of Betty team. When Ms. Schide could not use the aids, Wanda Threat, another walker from the Queenie team who raised more than $500, was chosen. When she could not use the aids, she was able to transfer the prize to her aunt, Connie Griggs of Chattanooga. Ms. Griggs has visited Beltone for free hearing exams in the past and is very excited to finally be able to hear her family and become active in life activities again.
Approximately 250 people participated in the 2015 Walk4Hearing. Officials thanked to all the walkers, volunteers, vendors, and 2015 sponsors: Zounds Hearing, Beltone South, Fairway Outdoor, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Volkswagen Chattanooga, Fairway, Clarity, CHI Memorial, Johnson Audiology, Audiology Services of Chattanooga, Chattanooga State, Caption Associates LLC, Roadtec, Southern Champion Tray, WRCB-TV, Erlanger, the David Ingram Family, Coca-Cola, CBL, Chattanooga’s Healthy Hearing, Western Sizzlin’ of Jasper, and Hair & Colour Company.
More than 48,000 people in the greater Chattanooga area have some degree of hearing loss. Locally, the money raised through Walk4Hearing helps to provide programs, services or equipment to people with hearing loss, including college scholarships, camp fee assistance for children and adults with hearing loss, captioning of live theatre, meetings and events, registration fee assistance to national HLAA conventions, equipment to veterans with hearing loss, looping initiatives for use with hearing aid telecoils, and participation fess for local health-related expos to help raise awareness of hearing loss.
The 2016 Walk4Hearing will be held on May 14, 2016. For information email Betty Proctor, baproctor@epbfi.com.