Congratulations to the Droese Family who had the largest team fundraising effort at the 2021 Run for Sound, earning them the title of 2022 RFS Ambassador Family!
Mark Droese joined the Hear Indiana Board in 2019. He and his wife, Anne, have three children, one of whom (Nolan) has a hearing loss.
Nolan was born on Feb. 17, 2015 – healthy and happy! He “referred” on his newborn hearing screening, but then passed the 2nd test before being discharged, so we had no initial concerns about his hearing. Fast forward about a year, and we noticed he seemed to be delayed in hitting some speech milestones. At 18 months old, we wanted to rule out hearing loss as a potential cause for his speech delay so decided to get a hearing assessment. Much to our surprise, his Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) evaluation revealed a mild/moderate bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Nolan received his hearing aids in December 2016 and hasn’t looked back! Since that time, he has received speech therapy services and continues to make great strides. Nolan is a high energy and bright 7 year old boy. He loves anything to do with sports and playing with friends. Through Nolan’s hearing loss, we have had the incredible opportunity to meet several individuals in the deaf and hard of hearing community, particularly several at Hear Indiana, that we otherwise would never have met. Any support you are able to provide makes a big difference in lives of children like Nolan!
