You’ll never believe what happened when this man lost his hearing aids in the ocean
October 11, 2017
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October 13, 2017Ellen interviews 10-year-old boy raising money for hearing aids to give to others
Hard-of-hearing, 10-year-old Braden Baker, fell off his chair when he found out he was going to be on Ellen to be interviewed about why he is raising money to help others in the deaf and hard of hearing community.
He has raised over $23,000 to give hearing aids to people who need them, but cannot afford them. Braden has a 75 percent hearing loss in both ears and has been wearing hearing aids since he was seven months old. He mentions how his funding originally started after his dog ate his hearing aids multiple times.
“Well my dog actually ate my hearing aids twice, and my mom actually got really mad at me,” says Braden.
Later it was revealed that his dog is named Chewy. “Well you named the dog chewy, you asked for it,” says Ellen.
After the incident, Braden’s parents taught him a lesson about how his family can afford another pair of hearing aids, but there are many families around the world that cannot afford a new pair or even just one hearing aid.
“And that just made me feel bad for the people who couldn’t hear,” says Braden.
Braden watches Ellen and she inspired him to give back to others. This gave Braden the idea to start raising money to give others the hearing aids they need. His goal for his GoFundMe campaign was originally $1,000 and he ended up raising over $23,000.
For Braden’s 11th birthday, he is going to Guatemala with his family. “With the money we raised, we got about 100 hearing aids, and we’re going to go hand out hearing aids to kids and adults who can’t afford them,” says Braden.
After Ellen heard this, she gave Braden an iPad Pro for his birthday. She is also partnered with Cheerios in a campaign called ‘One million acts of good’ where they find people doing good for the world and support their efforts. Ellen told Braden to search a big Cheerio box. After digging through the box, Braden ended up with $20,000 cash in his hand.
Ellen told Braden she is proud of what he is doing. She says, “We want to follow your story (Braden). So I want to have you back on the show. I want your mother to continue to dance on the show… Because I love to encourage kids like this that are doing just selfless acts like this, at this age. That’s pretty amazing.”
Read more: Ellen chats with deaf, blind high school football player
Keep up with Ellen and Braden here!
