STUDENT DESIGNS MASKS FOR HEARING IMPAIRED

With people around the world buying up and making their own face masks, one clever student has thought of a new way to help out the hearing impaired.

Twenty-one-year-old Ashley Lawrence, a college student from Kentucky has designed and made clear face masks for people who rely on lip-reading.

Lawrence, who studies education for the deaf and hard of hearing, enlisted her mum to help and together they have sewn and shipped out the masks to deaf individuals and hospitals, free of charge. “I just saw that people were making masks on Facebook for everyone to have instead of the throwaway masks, and I was like, what about the deaf and hard-of-hearing population?” she told a local news outlet.

Lawrence has shared a step-by-step tutorial in the hopes that others will follow suit. Eric Kim, a high schooler from Portland, Oregon is one of those who has picked up Lawrence’s tutorial. Kim, who is hearing impaired and also volunteers at an elementary school for the hearing impaired, says he wanted to help others. Like Lawrence, Kim sends masks for free to anyone who asks and has set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for materials and shipping.

“As long as people keep requesting, I’ll be making masks whenever I have time,” he told local media.