Hearing-impaired adults spread Thanksgiving cheer to hearing-impaired children

Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1999 | 9:18 a.m.

The women who prepared Thanksgiving baskets for needy families couldn't hear the recipients of their charitable act say "thank you," but the smiles were gratitude enough.

Members of Silver Belles of Las Vegas are deaf, or hearing impaired.

Every year at this time Silver Belles (not affiliated with the Silver Belles dance organization) donates food to needy families selected by Ruby Thomas Elementary School.

Ten families of hearing-impaired students were selected to receive Thanksgiving baskets this year.

Silver Belles spokesperson Mary Brown said that the nonprofit organization is made up entirely of hearing-impaired women, most of whom are retired and want to do something useful with their time, as well as gather for social reasons. They meet on the first Tuesday of each month at the Maycliff Mobile Home Park in East Las Vegas.

"We saw a need for helping deaf children," Brown said.

Not that they limit their good deeds to the deaf.

Three years ago the group raised money to help send two bus loads of students to Disneyland. But most of what they do is for children with hearing problems. They donate to Deaf Camp. They visit deaf children in hospitals.

On Monday morning most members of the organization, which numbers about 40, were in the Maycliff clubhouse, putting together boxes of food that included turkey and all the trimmings.

After filling boxes with food, some of the Belles joined a caravan of cars to deliver the gifts to the families.

"This is the first year we have hand-delivered the baskets," Brown said. "The first two times we sent them home with kids on school buses, but this year we wanted to see who we were giving them to, to meet them face to face."

The warm smiles that greeted them at the doors as they delivered the food around the valley more than paid for the year of planning and fund raising that went into the three-year-old project.

Schools, services and the deaf

According to school officials there are more than 350 hearing-impaired students throughout the Clark County School District. About 60 are bused to Ruby Thomas. Others are bused to one of the other six elementary schools, two middle schools and two high schools that offer special classes for the hearing impaired in the district.

Not all attend one of those schools. Some go to regular classrooms, accompanied by an interpreter. A district spokesman said the type of classroom environment a student is placed in is whatever is best suited for that student.

Brown, who spent years working with deaf organizations in California before retiring, said that in addition to educating deaf students, awareness of deaf issues is very important in Southern Nevada. "Services for the deaf are way behind here, compared to other states," she said, adding that in California, entire newscasts are captioned, while in Las Vegas there are no captions when a reporter goes to the scene of a story.

"In emergencies there are things we need to know, but there are no captions," she said, citing the recent floods as an example.

And although the public schools in Clark County accommodate hearing-impaired students, the state may be the only one that doesn't have a school specifically for the deaf.

A group of families are trying to change that with a charter school.

The Las Vegas Charter School for the Deaf has been in the planning stage for almost a year. Organizers, many of whom are unhappy with the teaching methods in the public schools, will have another meeting to further the charter school plans Dec. 4.

Brown says it is impossible to determine the size of the deaf community in Las Vegas, but hazards a guess that it is more than 1,000.

Basket project benefits

Linda Warburton is one of a handful of teachers at Ruby Thomas who teach hearing-impaired students. Warburton, who has 11 students in her class, helped choose the needy families for this year's Thanksgiving basket project.

She said that although the families benefit from the food and appreciate what has been done for them, the greater benefit is that the hearing-impaired children get to meet and visit with hearing-impaired adults.

"Most of the families are hearing and don't understand the deaf culture in and of itself," she said. "This (Thanksgiving project) means a lot to deaf kids, who see other deaf people, especially adults."

Warburton adds that the project enables the families to realize that there is a strong deaf culture and that Las Vegas has an active deaf community. "This expands everyone's awareness," she said.

Most of the families chosen to receive Thanksgiving baskets this year were Hispanic, although that was not the intent.

And some of those families don't speak English, which further complicates the problem of the deaf students. Warburton said that a Spanish-speaking interpreter who also knows signing accompanied the Silver Belles when they made their deliveries.

Brown said that planning for Thankgsiving 2000 will begin in January. The organization will raise money by selling craft work at arts and crafts fairs and by hosting an annual picnic in October.

The charitable activity, Brown added, "is a chance for retired people to get together and make new friends and renew old friendships" as well as help the children.

And for that, everyone is thankful.