Local hearing instrument specialist Tom Dalios is on a mission to make sure everyone has a chance to experience proper hearing.
Part of that mission included fitting 40 low-income people in Toronto with new hearing aids at the Rogers Centre before they took in the Blue Jays final home game of the regular season.
"It's all about giving back," says Dalios. "Once you see the smiling on a person when you've fitted them with a couple devices, and you get the hugs from them, it just makes your day."
Dalios says the initiative stemmed from the Starkey Hearing Foundation. They normally perform missions in poorer countries, like El Salvador, Peru and Kenya, and fit hearing aids for as many as 3,000 people at a time. This was the group's first fitting in Canada.
Dalios adds they have some pretty lofty goals.
"The Starkey Hearing Foundation is committed to fit one-million people by the year 2020. We've done roughly 630,000 fittings up until this point, so we're pretty well on our way to accomplishing that goal," says Dalios.
The local specialist adds plans are in the works to bring in Starkey missions for the hearing impaired in Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent.
The participants got to meet some notable Blue Jays personalities, as seen in the video below, courtesy of Starkey Canada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbjulTB-OmI&feature=youtu.be