First HEAR Center Halloween Bowl-A-Thon a Howling Success

The first-ever Bowl-A-Thon fund-raiser sponsored by the Pasadena hearing and speech support organization HEAR Center on Sunday was a “howling” success.

Families and friends of HEAR Center turned out to bowl, many dressed in their favorite Halloween costume to have fun and enjoyed the food and prizes.

“There are a lot of kids in their Halloween costumes,” said Ellen Simon, Executive Director of the HEAR Center. She added, “We are having a ball!  We raised money today from our sponsors, and we charged $25 at the door for everybody to have fun and enjoy the food and drinks. We have appetizers, bowling shoes, etc. We are good to go.”

According to Simon, the event, held at 300 Pasadena Bowling in East Pasadena was aimed at raising funds for the organization to continue providing hearing and speaking support services to the community.

She went on to say, “This is our first Bowl-A-Thon sponsored by HEAR Center. We are a not for profit hear and speech center that provides affordable speech and hearing services for all ages.”

The successful Bowl-A-Thon will not be the last for HEAR Center. Indeed, HEAR Center Marketing/Special Events/Screenings Coordinator Alyssa Wasserman said a similar event is planned for spring.

“We hope to do this again in the spring. With this great turn,” Wasserman said referring to the number of people who came to support the activity, “we believe it is possible. We have lot of HEAR Center families and friends who came to support. I am so happy. Everybody is having a great time.”

Wasserman added that the event also intended as a coming out party for HEAR Center and that through it, the center want to educate the public of its existence.

“We want to be more involved in the community. We want to community know who we are and what we do and help support us,” she said.

Aside from the audiology, hearing therapy, and speech pathology services that HEAR Center provides, the group also performs community outreach programs to bring free hearing and speech-language screenings to those in need (typically the young and the old).

HEAR Center also conducts informational seminars to the community to increase awareness on various disorders that can affect hearing and speech problems.

“The benefits go to HEAR Center – it will help HEAR Center continue to provide services to our community,” said Wasserman. “It’s just a great community event for everyone to come out and bowl, have some food, and get ready for fall.”

“We’re gearing up for free hearing screenings and speech screenings for preschools, regular schools, and senior centers,” said Simon. “We go to their location and provide the services free of charge and we provide free follow-up services at the HEAR Center for all children that fail a screening.”

“We also provide speech screening at the schools, preschools and regular schools,” added Simon. “We provide free follow-up services at the HEAR Center for children who fail a speech screening. We were at 69 sites providing these services last year.”