(This is a combination of two email messages from Star Greiser — President of Southeastern Virginia Society of the Deaf — describing the successful rally her group had on September 29, 2007. This is indeed inspiring! –Ella)

It was a wonderful day – a wonderful rally… very emotional for many people. Tears were running down our cheeks for straight hours! About 200 Deaf, hard of hearing, hearing, ASL students, interpreters, parents of deaf children came out for the event: the kids had a blast playing in the water fountain in the back while the adults were attending matters of ! consequence.

And get this! A police officer on bicycle patrol walked over to our rally and when realized what it was for, he wanted to talk to me so badly. He was very emotional and intent on talking to me! It turns out the officer’s son is deaf and has no idea how to parent a deaf child for lack of resources and information. We were able to get some information to him before he was called out again. Serendipity!!!

This rally was an amazing first success in our community! Please see below for the link to pictures…

“http://picasaweb.google.com/shanrid/Rally”

“http://picasaweb.google.com/Roxieslens/SVSDSeptember292007″

I hope this has a lasting ripple effect in the local community and spreads outward to the state and the nation. This is just the first step. The mission of our group, Southeastern Virginia Society of the Deaf, is to establish a community-based resource center for Deaf people and parents of the Deaf children. We are also gathering momentum in creating a coalition for deaf ed reform in the state of Virginia and hope to eventually establish a bilingual charter school for deaf children in the Hampton Roads… these are big dreams and we have a long way to go in this fight, but I do believe we will one day get there.

I also realized this was the only rally of this type that I know of (I haven’t heard of others) held in the state of Virginia… Gallaudet had their rally on the 28th – but they also have a ready-made audience of attendees.

We live in Southeastern Virginia where Deaf-positive information/resources and parental resources to both the Deaf community and to the general commuity are almost nonexistent… we still drew a large crowd and a little media attention! Not bad! *Grins!*

We had a hearing parent of a Deaf child speak about her journey with her child and how she chose to learn ASL for her toddler and surround her daughter with Deaf adult language role models instead of implanting her child with a CI and going the AVT route. She said her daughter (at age 2) already exhibits such brilliance through her natural language.

AFter the mother’s speech, one of our local Deaf performers performed your poem: “To a Hearing Mother, by Ella Mae Lentz” to reach out to the hearing parents in our audience.

Everything was just so magnificant. It’s hard to believe that it’s over so quickly! Already looking forward to next years! *Grins!*

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