Local Girl Uses Hearing Miracle as a Mission to Help Others: Songs for Sound Offers the Gift of Hearing through the Hear the Music Project:60 Days in Nashville

    NASHVILLE, TN, October 12, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The Hear the Music Project is making it's way across the U.S., coming home to Music City from October 18th - December 18th to provide free hearing screenings, hearing loss prevention education, and hearing protection through the local charity Songs for Sound.

Each screening matters.

Each could change a life.

Lexi Vernon was born without the ability to hear. It took over a year of fighting for answers and repeatedly being told by doctors that "she is fine" for her parents to get what their baby needed - a diagnosis. A few months later, at 19 months old, Lexi was fitted with the bilateral cochlear implants that changed her life. She is deaf, but she can hear. (See Lexi's cochlear implant activation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwsCyIh4Ixc.)

Today Lexi is a typical third grader at Christ Presbyterian Academy who excels in basketball and softball and loves music. "I like to rock and roll," exclaims Lexi. "If I am hanging out with my softball team between tournament games, we sit around and make Musical.ly videos. I can't imagine not being able to hear and laugh with them."

Her parents, Jaime and Kevin Vernon, founded Songs for Sound in 2011 to help other families access the hearing healthcare their daughter was initially denied. Rooted in the conviction that everyone deserves a chance to hear and heal with music, the charity strives to protect and restore hearing for the 360 million people worldwide suffering from hearing loss. Songs for Sound does international mission work at the Jamaica Christian School for the Deaf (Lexi's older brother Jacob is a repeat missionary), raises money locally through songwriter's events, and launched the Hear the Music Project this year to bring awareness, access and action around hearing loss to every corner of the U.S.

Here is how it works. The project operates a mobile hearing clinic sponsored by Phonak (global leader in hearing technology), the Memorial Foundation, and Cochlear Americas (global leader in cochlear implants). The clinic visits community events across the nation, conducting free hearing screenings and teaching hearing loss prevention. The Songs for Sound team follows up with every participant who is referred for further screening to encourage people to look into treatment options and avoid a host of health risks associated with uncorrected hearing loss. (See the clinic in action at https://vimeo.com/177808312.)

Results from the first three months of the project highlight the significance of it's mission. Thousands of free hearing tests have been given and nearly half (48%) of participants were referred for further testing, including:

86% of veterans
49% of adults
38% of teens
20% of children

"Songs for Sound helping people hear the music is for kids like me who just want to be a kid," says Lexi Vernon. Kids like Ava Young. Ava is also a deaf bilateral cochlear implant recipient, and when her parents could not afford to send her to Vanderbilt's Mama Lere Hearing School to get the speech and language therapies she needed to catch up, Songs for Sound stepped in to make sure she could attend by offsetting before and after care costs.

"It feels good to help others- like a way to say thank you for the life I have," Lexi said.

Here is the calendar for the first month of Hear the Music Project: 60 Days in Nashville:

Oct. 17 Saint Clair St. Senior Center 8am-1pm
Oct. 18-19 Operation Stand Down 7:30am-3:30pm
Oct. 20 Knowles Fifty-Forward 9am-1pm
4:13 Strong 6pm-8pm
Oct. 21 Preston Taylor Ministries 3pm-5:30pm
Oct. 22 Hauntings at the Hermitage 4pm-10pm
Oct. 24 Robertson County YMCA 8am-3pm
Oct. 25 Green Hills YMCA TBA
Oct. 26 12 Stone Health 9am-5pm
Oct. 28 Elizabeth Senior Center 9am-1:30pm
Preston Taylor Ministries 3pm-5:30pm
Oct. 29 TAADAS Healthy Fair 11am-4pm
Oct. 31 Bethlehem Centers of Nashville Fall Festival 5pm-7pm
Nov. 1 Brentwood YMCA 8am-1pm
Nov. 3-4 Sumner County YMCA 8am-2pm
Nov. 7 Valor Boys & Girls Club TBA
Nov. 8 Andrew Jackson Boys & Girls Club TBA
Nov. 9 Cleveland Park Boys & Girls Club TBA
Nov. 10 Music for Seniors 8:30am-1pm
Nov. 11 Fairview Boys & Girls Clubs TBA
Nov. 12-13 Nashville Zoo 9am-4pm
Nov. 14 Martha O'Bryan Center 4:30pm-7pm
Nov. 15 Martin Center Fifty-Forward 9am-2pm
Nov. 16 Fannie Battle Home for Children TBA
Nov. 17 St. Luke's Community House 9:30am-1:30pm
Nov. 18 Nashville Rescue Mission 9am-1pm
Nov. 19 One Generation Away TBA

To join the Hear the Music Movement, to host the mobile clinic, to volunteer, to give, to learn more, visit www.songsforsound.com.

About Songs for Sound
Songs for Sound is a Nashville based 501c3 charity that strives to protect and restore hearing, using music as inspiration and outreach, to improve the lives of the 360 million people suffering from hearing loss. The Hear the Music Project 2016-2017 tour aims to reach 50,000 ears across the nation.

Sponsorships are available by contacting [email protected].

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