8 year old sells lemon(aids) to help fund children’s hearing aids

After discovering that some families, including her own family, struggle to afford hearing devices, 8-year-old Carly Waters wanted to change this reality.

Although Carly doesn’t have a hearing loss, both of her sisters do. Her sister, Molly, was born last year with a moderate to severe hearing loss and wears hearing aids. Shortly after Molly was diagnosed with hearing loss, Carly and Molly’s youngest sister Emma was diagnosed with hearing loss too. Emma needed hearing aids too, but her parents had a hard time coming up with funding for the expensive technology. Carly watched this and wondered if there was anything she could do to assist in providing children’s hearing aids. 

Wanting to help her parents and other families out, Carly thought of starting a lemonade stand, but a permit was needed. As she couldn’t have a stand, Carly, who has a dream of becoming an artist put her thinking cap on and made use of her creative skills. That’s when she came up with the idea of ‘lemon(aids) for hearing aids’!

Making lemon(aids) to help others

The lemon(aids) consist of stuffed lemons made out of fabric.

“I made a few patterns and then boom I made a cute lemon!” Explains Carly. “It takes me about a half an hour to make one lemon and Emma helps me stuff them!”

Her idea quickly caught on and she began to receive requests from people to have lemons made for them.

The funds raised from selling her lemon(aids) have been ‘donated directly to families in need of hearing devices for their children. All recipients so far have greatly benefitted from them.

Over 130 lemon(aids) have been sold. You can even find the lemons internationally, as they have been sent to countries such as Australia and Germany.

Carly stays motivated to make the lemon(aids) by learning more about hearing loss and the importance of wearing hearing aids in school. Her sister explains how hard it can be to hear in the classroom without hearing aids. Carly wants others to have the same access to sound in the classroom as her sisters do.

“I want kids to be able to feel confident, happy and do well in school,” says Carly. 

Early access to hearing devices is crucial for language development in deaf children, just as well as getting the right support in school is pivotal for their future.

Read more: Ellen interviews 10-year-old boy raising money for hearing aids to give to others

“I don’t want them [families] to have to worry about money,” Carly says. “All kids who need hearing aids should be able to have them. I just want the world to know about kids with hearing loss and how awesome they are.” 

If you wish to support Carly’s project, more information here.

• Author Details

Author Details

Ellie Parfitt

Ellie was born profoundly deaf, uses verbal communication, lipreads and wears Phonak Sky Q hearing aids. She is currently learning British Sign Language. Ellie hasn’t let her disability stand in the way and embraces every new challenge. Her deafness didn’t prevent her from achieving major accomplishments in her life, such as excelling in her education, previously working as a Marketing Executive and now as an Events Coordinator for a deaf organization, as well as blogging for Hearing Like Me. She is passionate about deaf awareness, campaigning for equality and helping others through her personal blog as Deafie Blogger.