Our Community

Maryland is one of the 36 states that has a Commission serving the deaf and hard of hearing population and is supported by the state government, but does not function as a Deaf Center.
Many states have Deaf Centers: California has nine and other states such as Illinois, Kansas and Utah have one where there is a large cluster of deaf population.
Maryland has over 1.2 million Deaf and hard of hearing residents.
Frederick has thousands of deaf and hard of hearing residents.
Frederick would house the first Deaf Center in Maryland.

Rationale

We need:

Accessibility to activities in our American Sign Language (ASL).
Accessibility to a variety of services in ASL such as social, references and information sharing.
A place where we can present educational workshops, career internship and placement.
A place where the hearing community can learn sign language with Deaf people and join us for workshops, educational and social events.
A place where individuals wanting to learn to become interpreters can do their internships.
A place where community theaters, recreation activities and social events can take place.
A place where referrals can be made to a variety of resources.
A place where all Maryland counties can utilize.

Members of the Deaf Community are: