Loud Shirt Day

Friday 21 September is Loud Shirt Day.

Be a star on Loud Shirt Day – Friday September 21, 2012 – and help deaf kids learn to listen and talk like their hearing friends. If you’ve taken part in Loud Shirt Day before you’ll know it’s a great way to commit serious fashion crimes and have a whole lot of fun at work or at school. And if this is your first year being involved with Loud Shirt Day, we know you’ll have a fabulous time wowing your colleagues and friends with your brightest, funkiest shirt.

This year we have a Hawaiian theme so what better way to celebrate than with a Hawaiian luau at your work or school plus Hawaiian pizza for lunch? Plus, please click here to enter the draw to win a trip to Hawaii.

Loud Shirt Day is the annual appeal of The Hearing House and the Southern Cochlear Implant Paediatric Programme. So what are you waiting for? Register for free now, knowing the money that you donate has a life-changing impact on deaf children.

A great excuse to wear a loud shirt and support a good cause. One of the organisers e-mailed:

Loud Shirt Day is a fundraising day for kids who have cochlear implants. I’m not sure if you know anyone with a cochlear implant. They are essentially like a very flash hearing aid but part of them is surgically implanted. They are modern day miracles in that they give hearing to people who are profoundly deaf.

There 325 kids in NZ with them. My daughter is one of those kids. 

In NZ the government funds one ‘ear’. And some parents like me fund the other (about 16%). They cost $50k each which is quite a hit for many families. 

Loud Shirt Day fundraises for funds to provide therapy for the kids, especially kids who are born with no hearing. It takes a lot of effort to catch a kid up to their peers. My daughter is on track to catch when she turns 7 (she is 5 1/2). We want to intensify the therapy available to newly implanted children and get that down to under 5yo (i.e. They can start school on par with their peers).

As someone with a hearing impediment myself, I know how tough it can be if a kid can’t hear properly, let alone at all.