Adult Loss of Hearing Association, Inc.

ALOHA seeks to improve the quality of life of the 10% of Arizonans over 50 years of age, living in our community, who have acquired hearing loss. ALOHA voluntarily supports at-risk individuals who are in critical need of 1) understanding their hearing loss, 2) gaining knowledge of assistive devices and procedures that would address their loss, 3) advocacy and/or a sense of empowerment through interaction with others individuals that have hearing loss. The agency works with thousands of individuals each year who are seeking assistance to mitigate the isolation that they experience as a result of not being able to hear and, eventually, not being able to function independently. In addition to providing individualized, personalized support services, ALOHA has adopted a campaign to Loop Arizona, promoting the Loop assistive technology which can be accessed by all members of the community, whenever it is installed in a public facility. Finally, the ALOHA staff and volunteers serve as advocates for Arizonans with hearing loss by participating in national and local forums and agencies, and taking the ADA message to local businesses and venues in Arizona.

ALOHA was formed in 1984 by a retired public school teacher, Gloria Baral, that lost her hearing late in life. Her strategy for the formation of the organization was to recruit volunteers from the late deaf population to become ALOHA members. The volunteer members organized discussion groups and activities in the community and a public relations campaign to apprise Southern Arizonans of the needs of adults who lose their hearing. As communication and coping skills are key to survival for the hard of hearing, classes in American Sign Language, Lip Reading, Computing and vocational skills were added. ALOHA's original strategies were to provide individualized education as well as emotional support on a short term or long term basis, as needed, to people who had no place to turn for help. ALOHA's strategy of weaving a safety net for each person that comes to the agency seeking help, of sharing as much strength-based experience and knowledge through multiple media, of removing the debilitating walls that surround people with late deafness has proven to be an excellent one that has been maintained for 34 years.

The current ALOHA strategies are very much the same today as originally developed - a cadre of trained volunteers who have experienced loss of hearing in their adult years provide expert support services to individuals that have been referred to ALOHA or that have found the agency through the website. Working in concert with local hearing professionals, the scope of the programs has been expanded as called for, to include information about and demonstrations of assistive devices (such as hearing aids and cochlear implants), professional speakers on issues affecting hard of hearing adults (such as training of support dogs and emergency preparedness for the hard of hearing), specialized discussion groups (such as the Tinnitus Support Group) and advocacy for community-based assistive hearing devices (especially the Loop in public venues and businesses.) ALOHA volunteers are deeply involved in the work of the local, state and national advocacy agencies for the hard of hearing and they share their enthusiasm and expertise with their ALOHA constituents during discussion groups where new programs are born.

ALOHA has a strong and diverse base of volunteers that provide a constant complement of support services, in alignment with their areas of expertise and the challenges that they have conquered. ALOHA's service to community members is only limited by the number of hard of hearing individuals who learn of the agency's support services. Community awareness of the need for assistive support is crucial to the success of ALOHA programs, as well. ALOHA advocates for Looping of public and private venues, including the establishment of hearing professional in Southern Arizona. With the support of Sertoma International and the local Sertoma chapter in Tucson, a Looping Arizona drive is accelerating the demand for the technology and the education of individuals who provide services to the hard of hearing throughout governmental, retail, medical, public and performance spaces. Once again, ALOHA volunteers stand ready to perform many of the outreach activities needed here and are currently being trained to test and catalog Looping capability at all public spaces in the Tucson community.

ALOHA is proud to have maintained a level of excellence for 34 years in providing peer support, advocacy, and educational services to thousands of Hard of Hearing individuals in Southern Arizona, through the volunteer efforts of dozens of hard of hearing individuals and hearing professionals.

ALOHA has operated a balanced budget for 34 years, with NO cost to ANY individual seeking and receiving services and, thus, all individuals seeking services respectfully served. ALOHA's programs are funded solely through donations and grant proceeds.

ALOHA successfully launched a Loop project in the Tucson community in 2004 and instituted a Looping Arizona drive again in 2018. These two efforts are responsible for bringing sound to many hard of hearing community members in their places of worship, medical providers' offices, public buildings and spaces, and in the retail establishments they frequent. The number of Looped spaces in Tucson grows every year as ALOHA provides Tucson facility managers with information about the process and encourages them to stay in touch with any needs they have in employing this technology to its fullest capacity.

ALOHA is a non-profit entity for the distribution of information on all issues related to hearing loss, and works diligently to support individuals experiencing the loss of ability to communicate with their family, friends and peers. ALOHA only aspires to increasing the number of individuals we serve, lessening the level of suffering experienced by individuals losing their ability to hear and improving the lives of HOH individuals and their family members. Our goal is to serve more individuals each year, increasing their knowledge of assistive technologies that will improve their lives, in a non-biased environment.