Local athlete sends hearing aids to Mexico

The deaf-blind medal winner – also a champion rower in his off-season – recently completed a months-long fundraising campaign to help bring the gift of hearing to a young deaf boy in Mexico, raising almost $3,000 for the cause.

While vacationing in Cancun in October, Frost was introduced to a local missionary working with a deaf boy, Alfredo. Approached to offer advice on how to communicate with the deaf and hard of hearing, Frost decided to journey to the rural community Alfredo called home to meet the boy.

Borrowing Frost’s hearing aid during their visit, Alfredo “could hear his mother’s voice for the first time,” he recounts, calling it an “astonishing” experience and one that forged a connection between the east-end resident and the youth.

Inspired to help Alfredo obtain better hearing, Frost returned to his resort and gave a presentation on the boy’s needs, raising $100 and promising his own old hearing aids and equipment as a start.

With his return to Canada, full-out fundraising began in November, Frost says, at a Gloucester Concordes event where he managed to collect $450 in two days. As details on his project began to spread through word of mouth and local media coverage, “overwhelming” support also grew, he continues. “People were very touched by the story,” Frost explains. “It was a joint effort; there were probably about 100 people involved.”

By the end of February, approximately $2,700 had been collected courtesy of individual donations, support from Ottawa’s Mexican community and sponsorship from local businesses like Davidson Hearing Centre and Phonak Hearing Aids. In the end, two new hearing aids, a two-year supply of batteries and money for follow-up care, speech therapy and transportation costs were collected for Alfredo, Frost says. The local Mexican embassy even stepped in and agreed to waive the shipping and duty costs of sending everything down south, he adds. “When (Alfredo) gets the aid, he’s going to hear but not know how to talk,” he explains, pointing to the necessity of continued care. “(The support received) is a win-win in every way. (The medical professionals) are 100 per cent sure Alfredo can hear with the proper devices.”

With no sign language and “very limited visual cues,” Alfredo is now on his way to living a whole new reality, Frost says, estimating the hearing aids and other equipment should arrive in Mexico within the next several weeks. “I know how that can make a difference in someone else’s life,” he explains. “With the new sounds and new hearing, he could be a little overwhelmed at the beginning. But he’s going to realize he can now communicate.”

This won’t be the end of support for Alfredo or his village, Frost continues, indicating he hopes to plan future fundraisers with Ottawa’s Mexican community to help out. “It shows we do care about our neighbours (in Mexico); sometimes we do it in different ways,” he says. “It’s teaching people how positive energy works – what can come out of it.”