​Hi Everyone! This account is on behalf of Kendall, who is only 2 years old, and can’t quite take the reigns of this project yet so as her parents, we’re here on her behalf to tell our family’s story with the hope to spread awareness as well as express our gratitude and appreciation for the Walk4Hearing association.                                                             We discovered Kendall was deaf when she was 6 weeks old. She failed her newborn screening test at the hospital. We were, in a sense, “reassured” that this is somewhat common with babies who are born via c-section so it was taken with a grain of salt when we were walking into the follow up appointment with an audiologist. After 2 hours of ABR testing it was confirmed she was in fact deaf. As parents, naturally, you want your child to be “healthy” in every aspect of the meaning. In that moment, and for even days after, it was hard not to ask ourselves “why, why her?.” Especially when we had friends and family who had babies within days/weeks/months that didn’t experience any of this. Neither one of us has much interaction with the Deaf community and we’re ignorant to Deaf culture to no fault of our own. In retrospect, we really had nothing to be worried about. Our daughters diagnosis of severe to profound bilateral sensioneural hearing loss lead us on a path to being better parents, advocates, and unification. I wish I could go back to the moment she was diagnosed and tell myself that everything turned out exactly how it was supposed to be. This is Kendall, this is her identity. Were beyond proud.                                 We were given tons of resources and through all of that information we were fortunate enough to discover this association which shines light on hearing health and really advocates and spreads awareness and most importantly provides a safe space for those with hearing loss on every degree.                                                                Our goal, as a family, focuses on inclusiveness for this culture. With technology now It takes 30 seconds out of your day to look up how to sign “Hi! how are you?”. How long it takes you to walk a 5K is a different story lol but either way it makes such a difference to show up and show out. Thanks again!!                                      Xoxo,                                                                         Kendall, Tai & Marcus