2024 Non-Event

Celebrating First Words!

Listen Foundation has an annual fundraising mail campaign each year called the Non-Event that has been going strong since 1994. Its popularity centers around supporting this amazing program in the comfort of one’s own home…no new dress….no babysitter….no rubber chicken…..no lengthy speeches. What’s not to love??!!

This year the Non-Event celebrates Rhonda Sheya and her work dedicated to helping children achieve a life of independence via Listening and Spoken Language Therapy (LST). Rhonda was fresh out of college the first time she saw the miraculous impact of LST. She watched Doreen Pollack with a young girl and her mother during a therapy session, continuously working with the child to speak her first words.

“She looked up and said her mother’s name”, Rhonda recalls. “The joy in that room still touches my heart”.

Over the next 45 years, Rhonda saw this joy repeated in dozens of families and hundreds of lives. It’s why she’s dedicated almost five decades to serving in a variety of roles with Listen Foundation. Rhonda has shared that she was hooked on the power and impact of LST.

“I thought people were born deaf and had to remain so. Like anyone else, it was eye opening for me”

Interacting with a child with cochlear implant

Auditory Verbal Therapy was created in 1969 by trailblazer Doreen Pollack in Denver, Colorado. The principles she developed are still the global standard for teaching deaf and hard-of-hearing children to learn to listen and talk. In 2023, Listen Foundation served 105 unique therapy clients; a 24% increase over 2022, and we are already more than halfway there for 2024. Listen is serving an increased number of children in rural areas and in areas without access to an LST specialist.

We continue to provide funding for children and families that could not otherwise afford it because we believe developing spoken language should be an equitable right, meaning access to more schools, more opportunities, more family and social interactions and the realization of the child’s full potential.

During this 28th Anniversary of Listen Foundation’s Non-Event, please join Rhonda in giving your support today. Help us continue to bring this life changing therapy to families waiting to hear their child’s first words.

Hear Rhonda’s interview with the Listen Podcast!

“The thing is…you can change the outcome and see it happen within a relatively short period of time.”

-Rhonda Sheya

Help Make a Difference!

Help us fulfill our mission of getting more Colorado children listening and talking. Your contribution is used primarily to fund Listening and Spoken Language Therapy from our amazing network of therapists, helping children desperatly in need across the state.