Eugene, OR - Travel Lane County has been awarded the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) 2024 Get in the Hearing Loop Award for its work installing hearing loops throughout Lane County. "We are thrilled to be recognized with this HLAA award," shared Andy Vobora, Travel Lane County Vice President of Stakeholder Relations. "In 2021, we recognized Ginevra Ralph and Sue Pritchard with the Travel Lane County Community Leadership Award for their work implementing hearing loop technology at the John G. Shedd Institute for Arts and working with the Loop Lane Committee to advocate for hearing loops in other locations. It inspired me to request funds to work with our hotel and attractions members and get more locations looped. With an additional grant from Travel Oregon, we've been able to loop 40 locations throughout Lane County." Travel Lane County will receive this award in Phoenix, Arizona in June at the 2024 HLAA Conference. 

Hearing loops installed over the past year include:

  • 25 Hotels
  • 4 Performing Arts Venues
  • 4 Visitor Centers
  • 2 Retail/Restaurants
  • 5 Museums/Attractions

The Wildish Theater was the final loop project implemented with the Travel Oregon accessibility grant when work was completed in March 2024. Travel Lane County, the City of Springfield, the Springfield Renaissance Development Corporation (SRDC) and the Wildish Theater partnered to bring the project to life."We are so excited that the Wildish Community Theater has a Hearing Loop," said Theater Board President, Kelly Mason. 

The Wildish Theater was the final loop project implemented with the Travel Oregon accessibility grant when work was completed in March 2024. Travel Lane County, the City of Springfield, the Springfield Renaissance Development Corporation (SRDC) and the Wildish Theater partnered to bring the project to life."We are so excited that the Wildish Community Theater has a Hearing Loop," said Theater Board President, Kelly Mason. 

"The Wildish Community Theater is well known for its high quality acoustics," said Mike Eyster, SRDC President. Eyster went on to say, "The Hearing Loop will make the Theater much more accessible to even more patrons. The Wildish is happy to be a destination that focuses on accessibility. The Theater couldn’t be more grateful for community partners that have a shared vision of inclusion and excellence and a commitment to making the Wildish a place that everyone can enjoy."

Mason and Eyster expressed appreciation for the generous donors that contributed to the Hearing Loop project. 

Contacts

Travel Lane County, Andy Vobora, 541.501.9398, andy@EugeneCascadesCoast.org

Wildish Theater Board, Kelly Mason, 541.653.2952, kellymason78@yahoo.com

Springfield Renaissance Development Corporation, Mike Eyster, 541.954.6451, salsamike@comcast.net

City of Springfield, Niel Laudati, nlaudati@springfield-or.gov, 541.726.3780

More About Hearing Loops

Travel Lane County is committed to welcoming all visitors to the Eugene, Cascades & Coast region and ensuring they have a great Oregon experience. Hearing loss affects 48 million Americans - That’s 1 in 7 citizens that have this invisible disability. Hearing Loop systems allow customers with T-coil enabled hearing aids and cochlear implants to hear conversations clearly by delivering the staff’s voice directly into the visitor’s hearing device. Your staff will be better able to welcome guests and ensure they receive all the important information they require.  Learn more at Hearing Loss Association of America.

A special thank you to Alan Antilla, owner of Hearing Support Solutions, for assessing and installing all of the hearing loop systems at the hotels and attractions Travel Lane County has worked with over the past year.

About Loop Oregon

In 2017 Eugene’s John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts installed multiple hearing loops in their 70,000 sq. ft. performance and education center. Although loops are the most desired assistive listening system internationally, few of their audience knew what a loop was for or how to use it.

Shedd volunteers soon launched an initiative, called Loop Eugene, to educate the community about and advocate for the widespread adoption of hearing loops. As Covid made effective communication extremely challenging for everyone, but especially for those with hearing loss, the value of hearing loops which work through glass barriers and dramatically enhance clarity became even more dramatic – essential even to navigate masks, plexiglass, and distancing.

They appropriated small, 8"x 8” loops, originally designed for counter tops and businesses, as personal, portable loops that allowed people to attend outdoor socially distanced book clubs, in the car, plug into a television or computer, or hear in other challenging settings.

Zoom enabled the group to present to other hearing loss groups like Rotary, Chambers of Commerce, etc. around the state and around the country on why the universality of hearing loops are so critical to effective communication access. The user needs no additional equipment to hear instantly through a loop in any city or country other than their own telecoil enabled hearing aids.

The Hearing Loss Association of America presented the Committee their national “Get in the Hearing Loop” award for this work, particularly as it applied to using smaller personal loops to empower community members to take charge of their communication strategies and thus to advocate for greater communication accessibility throughout their daily lives and travels.

In 2021 The Shedd produced “Traveling With Hearing Loss”, a program with international speakers and artists with hearing loss discussing the challenges of traveling without adequate assistive communication systems in airports, trains, buses, ships, taxis, cultural venues, and for visitor needs such as hotels, tourism kiosks, and emergency medical services. The video is available on YouTube. Their loop efforts expanded to looping the Eugene airport, grocers, medical offices, public meetings, and additional houses of worship and cultural venues. Working closely with Travel Lane County to identify high-demand visitor venues and needs, the number of looped sites in Lane County has grown from around 10 in 2017 to over 70 with many more in the works. As part of the new Google Maps efforts they verify looped sites across Oregon, contributing monthly updates.

As their work has expanded, they have rebranded themselves LOOP OREGON, because that’s what they intend to do!