After over 30 years of helping to transform deaf people’s lives, and providing opportunities for people with hearing loss, The Ear Foundation has announced that sadly it will be closing this Friday.
The charitable organisation is well known in Ruddington for running free walk-in hearing aid clinics each month at St Peter’s Rooms – where it’s long provided hearing aid maintenance, advice and support within our village to NHS hearing aid users. However its clinic here on February 24th has turned out to be the last – at least for now.
‘Hear 2 Help’ service Adult Community Support Coordinator Laura Ainsworth explains: “Rising costs and overheads, increased competition for charitable grants and cuts to training budgets in health and education have had a substantial impact on our charity finances. Staff and trustees have worked hard to address these issues, making changes to staffing, services, increasing grant applications and selling the residential building, Marjorie Sherman House. Unfortunately, this has not resolved our financial challenges and we have had to take the difficult decision to sell the remaining Ear Foundation property and cease trading in a positive, solvent and ethical manner, enabling the charity to leave a financial legacy. We are therefore very sad to tell you that The Ear Foundation will close on 6th March 2020. We understand that this will come as a shock to many people and particularly those who have worked so hard and contributed to its success.”
Certainly much has changed since The Ear Foundation first opened its doors in 1989. Yet – even with the latest technology and all that this offers to children and adults with hearing loss – those behind the charity believe there’s still a need for a person-centred, family-friendly service offering practical support and training. “It is for this reason that a number of current staff are setting up a new, smaller charity to provide services which will continue to make a difference to the everyday lives of deaf children, adults and their families” reveals Laura. “We hope to bring you further news about this later in March and very much hope that we will be able to continue our work.”
In the meantime, if you have any queries, you can contact info@earfoundation.org.uk – whilst The Ear Foundation website will remain online until the end of March with further updates.
