A Nashville woman has helped give more than 6,000 hearing tests to strangers across the country through her charity called Songs for Sound.
"We want to use our passion for music to help people live their best lives, whatever that may be," said Jamie Vernon, founder of Songs for Sound.
Vernon's daughter Lexi was born deaf, though it took doctors more than a year to reach that diagnosis.
"She wasn't saying first words, she wouldn't respond to sounds," Vernon said. "We were told everything was okay, but we knew something was wrong."
Vernon fought for months to get Lexi to a specialist who finally gave her family an answer.
"They told us she was in fact profoundly deaf," Vernon said. "Everything went dark for me for about a minute. Then I said, 'What do we need to do?'"
Lexi was just 13 months old when she received cochlear implants - technology that allowed her to hear laughter, words, and music for the first time. The gift of hearing music was particularly important to Vernon, whose brother-in-law is Gary LeVox, lead singer of Rascal Flatts.
"Music was such a huge part of my life growing up," Vernon said. "I wanted my child to have that."
Lexi's journey to hearing inspired Vernon to launch Songs for Sound - which at first recreated Nashville songwriter's nights in cities across the U.S. - focused on raising awareness around hearing loss and prevention, but eventually became more.
"Here comes this huge idea of okay lets just go take hearing services to everyone," Vernon said.
She purchased a trailer, which she converted into a three-part mobile hearing clinic. Participants have been guided through a self-administered hearing test, given their results, and connected with the resources they need. Most participants have either been children or veterans.
A mission Jaime said was necessary. At least three out of every 1,000 babies are born with some degree of hearing loss, and infant hearing loss has been progressive and may not be detected in newborn screenings.
On January 20, Jaime Vernon has planned to share her daughter's story of deafness with hundreds of veterans and Donald Trump, at the Veteran's Inaugural Ball, just after Trump is sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.
Vernon will also introduce LeVox, who will perform at the event.
