The New York Yankees Add New DH to Community Line Up!

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The Starkey Hearing Foundation has teamed up with the 2009 World Champion New York Yankees to deliver the gift of free hearing to nearly one hundred underserved hearing impaired children throughout the New York area.  The mission, sponsored by FedEx, will be held on Sunday, September 26th from 11am-3pm at Yankee Stadium. Special volunteers that will be in attendance include Hall of Fame Pitcher Whitey Ford, former Yankee Pitcher Dennis Rasmussen, American Idol and Broadway Music Star Jordin Sparks, from the CBS Late Show Alan Kalter, lead singer from the band Cobra Starship Gabe Saporta and a number of other special guests.

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The press is invited to attend the pre-mission press conference inside of Gate 6 beginning at 10:30am with welcome and guest introductions by Justin Osmond, followed by the hearing mission at 11:00am.

An estimated 100 children in and around New York City will have the opportunity to hear, many of them for the first time, through the Starkey Hearing Foundation's gift of free hearing aids.

The Starkey Hearing Foundation, "So the World May Hear," is the global leader in hearing health care and is striving to change the social consciousness of hearing.  Each year, the Foundation delivers more than 100,000 hearing aids through hearing missions in countries stretching from the U.S. to Vietnam.  Since 2000, the Foundation has supplied nearly 500,000 hearing aids to people in need and is striving to achieve its goal of over one million free hearing aids in this decade.  In addition to giving the gift of hearing, the Foundation partners with Best Buy and the Grammy Foundation to promote "Safe Hearing"  and prevention especially among teens, through its National program, Soundmatters.  

"There is no greater gift than to help a child smile, laugh, sing, read, learn and grow - basically having the life that is unavailable due to a hearing disability," says Bill Austin, Chief Executive Officer of Starkey Laboratories and Founder of the Starkey Hearing Foundation.  "If you close your eyes you can hear in your mind all of the amazing sounds at a baseball game. My mission in life is to share that, especially with the children of New York." According to the Starkey Foundation, an estimated 63 million children worldwide suffer from hearing loss.  

Austin was recently awarded the Azteca Eagle Award from the President of Mexico in honor of the great humanitarian efforts of the Starkey Hearing Foundation. This is the highest honor paid to a non-citizen.  President Eisenhower, Senator Ted Kennedy and Bill and Melinda Gates are the only other US Citizens to have received the prestigious award.

For more information on the Starkey Foundation, visit www.starkeyhearingfoundation.org

SOURCE Starkey Hearing Foundation