SAN ANTONIO – Emma Faye Rudkin created Aid the Silent, a nonprofit organization hoping to build a community for deaf and hard-of-hearing children and teens. Now, she’s hoping to build them a playground too.
“To be able to create a place for them to come and be known in their own language of sign language or however else they decide to communicate, this is a place where they can do that,” Rudkin said.
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Aid the Silent is a San Antonio nonprofit that advocates and supports the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
Rudkin said she first started the organization when she was 18, but she longed for a sense of belonging since she was three -- when she went profoundly deaf.
“We’re all looking for just a place to really be included and belong,” Rudkin said. “This place is for them.”
With the help of Lowe’s, the home improvement chain, Rudkin said she’s getting one step closer to making the Aid the Silent space a place for children to play.
“This is a full circle moment of creating a place for deaf kids to belong,” Rudkin said. “We have a need where there really is not a place to play.”
Aid the Silent is one of 100 community-nominated projects selected to be a part of the 2023 Lowe’s Hometowns community impact program, receiving a grant to help renovate sidewalks, redo an outdoor space into a stage and build a deaf-accessible playground.
Rudkin said they’re expected to receive $140,000 with the grant.
“I always associated the playground as a place that I didn’t belong,” Rudkin said. “My earliest memories were on the playground just wanting to be included.”
Rudkin said typical playgrounds with turf and plastic sides are difficult to use for children with cochlear implants.
That’s because the static a person creates when using plastic slides can alter the programming of these surgical devices. Rudkin said that means kids either have to take off the devices at the playground or risk losing their function.
Rudkin said Aid the Silent is currently researching what makes a deaf-accessible playground.
The goal is to finish the playground by October. It aligns in time with their 6th annual Gala, held in early November.
To learn more about the nonprofit organization or how to support it, click here.