BECKLEY, W.Va. -Santa sleighed into Raleigh County to communicate with deaf or hard of hearing children making their Christmas wishes would come true early.
For over four decades quota nonprofit has requested Santa to make a stop before Christmas Day and he wants the children to know he is always watching and signing.
“We feel it’s important for the students to know there is a Santa here that they can communicate with if they need sign language or there is a Santa here that knows them, and so they may not get that at any other location, but they always get it at this party,” said Karen Reed, a member of Quota. Year after year organizers say that they see the same faces whether it be grandparents, parents or other family members, and some students attending have grown up coming to the event and continuing into their adulthood.
“A lot of these students who are here in the Sign Language Club have already graduated, but they come back for this event in particular. So, they feel the, the need or the want to be involved with these students,” said Reed.
One student sang a Christmas carol at the event and says this is a great chance for these students to know they have a community gathered around them.
“It’s really important to all these kids, because some of these kids, I don’t know what they’re thinking, but some of these kids could probably be thinking, ‘I am less represented, I’m misunderstood, just based on the definition that I’m deaf, I have a speech impediment, I have autism,’ and here, you’re not that, you are an independent person, you have a sense of righteousness, you have a sense that you are a fellow person,” said Trystan Ayers, a Freshman at Woodrow Wilson.
Santa signed “I love you” to all that visited him and plans to come back next year from the North Pole again.
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