Dundee Twp. Lions Club to offer free hearing screening

Dundee Township Lions Club will offer a Mobile Hearing Screening Unit to combat deafness. Deafness has no respect of age, wealth or rank - it strikes people of all economic, social and age categories with equal frequency.

To help protect the hearing of the public through an early alert system, to increase public awareness not only of the problems of the deaf, but also the capabilities of the hearing-impaired. The Lions Clubs of Illinois every year sponsor free hearing screenings for persons 18 or older and 10 to 17 years with written parental consent, in communities all over the state.

As part of that program, the Dundee Township Lions Club is sponsoring a screening from 9 a.m. to noon Friday, June 5. The van will be located in the parking lot of Dundee Manor Restaurant, Route 72 at Route 68, East Dundee. Hearing loss is probably the single most chronic disability in the U.S., occurring nearly four times as often as blindness.

"For many years, many associated deafness and stupidity together, even though deaf and hearing-impaired people have IQs equal to those of the hearing population," said Jerry Melahn, club president.

The deaf have shown to be just as qualified as the hearing for job opportunities.

"They should be shown, and deserve every consideration," said Bev Ides, club hearing chairwoman. Among the Lions members involved in the screening are: Herb Beck, Howard Baumgartner, Jim and Phyllis Connelly, Bruce Tietgen, Nancy Hanrahan, Michael Dewey and Bruce Armstrong.

The Mobile Screening activity is conducted through cooperation of the Lions of Illinois Foundation, the charitable arm of the state's more than 700 Lions Clubs, and is funded primarily from Candy Day, held statewide the second Friday of every October.