Hamilton Clinic Helping Correct Hearing Loss in Mexico with Starkey Hearing
Foundation

HAMILTON, ON, Feb. 11 /CNW/ - Sears Hearing Centres founder, Rhonda Martin , announced today that she will be volunteering on an eight-day Hearing Mission to Toluca, Mexico from February 21st to the 28th. The Mission, which is preparing to fit more than 2,000 adults and children with over 4,000 hearing devices, has been organized by the Starkey Hearing Foundation, as part of its commitment to "Help the World Hear."

"I am very much looking forward to participating in this Hearing Mission because we will be able to accomplish so much good, in such a short amount of time," said Rhonda Martin , the founder and an active Hearing Health Care Professional with Sears Hearing Centres. "I feel honored to have this opportunity to bring the gift of hearing to so many in need and am proud to lend my support to the Starkey Hearing Foundation in this way. Not only will we be fitting hearing devices, we will be providing training on hearing instrument care, their maintenance and giving away a supply of batteries," she added.

Hearing Missions are paid for through donations to the Starkey Hearing Foundation. Every year at the Foundation's annual "So the World May Hear" Awards Gala, attendees in a live auction bid on funding a number of Hearing Missions. At the last Gala, held in October 2009 , a consortium of distributors for Starkey Canada , a division of Starkey Laboratories, won the privilege of funding the Toluca, Mexico Mission.

About Sears Hearing Centres

Founded in 1988, Sears Hearing Centres are a leading provider of quality hearing healthcare services. Currently they have 12 locations in the GTA and southwestern Ontario. They operate under license with Sears Canada , but are owned and managed by Hear for Life Inc. In Hamilton, the Sears Hearing Centre is located in the Lime Ridge Mall on Wentworth Street.

In addition to fitting hearing instruments for clients with a hearing loss, Sears Hearing Centres are a major supplier of musician's earplugs and custom in-ear monitors. They have fit many world-renowned entertainers, including the Rolling Stones, Nelly Furtado , Celine Dion and many Canadian Idols to name a few.

They have six locations in the GTA: Etobicoke (Sherway Gardens Mall); North York (Yorkdale Mall); Thornhill (Promenade Mall); Scarborough (Scarborough Town Centre); Mississauga ( Erin Mills Centre), and a stand alone Hear for Life clinic at 1573 Danforth Ave at Coxwell Ave. In Southwestern Ontario they also have 6 locations: Sarnia (Lambton Mall); London (Masonville Place); Windsor (Devonshire Mall); Hamilton (Lime Ridge Mall); St. Catharines (Pen Centre); and Kitchener (Fairview Park Mall).

About Starkey Hearing Foundation (SHF)

Since 1973, The Starkey Hearing Foundation has been giving the gift of hearing to the world's underprivileged -especially children- through its internationally recognized Hearing Missions program and its domestic program, Hear Now. Its goals are to promote hearing health awareness and education; provide hearing instruments and personal listening devices to people in need, and to support and conduct research and education in hearing breakthroughs and technologies.

In late 2007, SHF launched Sound Matters, a comprehensive hearing awareness initiative that is raising social awareness around healthy hearing, the prevention of hearing damage and the need for regular hearing checkups. Using the web and a series of public service announcements it hopes to change the way people think about hearing, the joy of listening and the many ways that sound matters.

Over the past 12 months, the Starkey Hearing Foundation has provided more than 50,000 hearing instruments, both domestically and abroad, to underprivileged individuals. Since 2000, more than 400,000 hearing instruments have been supplied to persons in need worldwide. Please visit www.sotheworldmayhear.org to learn more.

For further information: Lisa Martin at [phone] or e-mail: [email protected]