May marks Better Speech and Hearing Month, and to recognize the issue of hearing and speech loss, the Lima Noon Sertoma Club announced their poster child for this year.
Four year-old Adrianna Cotter was named the 2019 Sertoma Poster Child at the club's meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
Every May, the Sertoma Hearing Aid Recipient Program, or SHARP, picks one child from the area who has a hearing or speech impairment.
Adrianna was born with a congenital virus that caused hearing loss. She received her first cochlear implant in April of 2017 and the second implant in October of the same year. The Sertoma Club has played a big part in helping Adrianna and her mother, Samantha.
"They’ve been very supportive; we talked to them back in September and they’ve been able to help my support group as well - personally and with our support group, they been tremendous," said Samantha Bullock, Adrianna's mother.
Those with the SHARP committee says hearing loss is a very real thing that happens to people in our area.
"There are a lot of people that can’t hear and have different degrees of impairment, but we try to help as many people as we can," said Patrick Wainscott, chairman of the SHARP committee. "The SHARP program gives hearing aids to those that don’t qualify for the hearing aids, or those that certainly can’t afford them."
The Sertoma Club will also be holding a summer speech and hearing clinic in June.
