"The Zone and the church have saved my life"
I am Jahmal, and I want you to know how the Deaf Shalom Zone and the church have
changed my life. When a Zone volunteer brought a flyer to my class in Baltimore City about the Super Saturday program almost
3 years ago, I laughed. But my friend said lets try it. We had fun with the other kids and we had a place to go. My
life was rough. My mother worked but she was on drugs for 15 years. No one knew that we had no BGE, no heat, no
food and often no water for showers or bathroom. I stayed with other kids' families sometimes. One day a Zone volunteer
came to pick me up for some fun and the sheriff was throwing out all of our stuff. The Zone helped me to live with another
kid's family for a year, and worked to get me out of the Baltimore City school and into Model Secondary School in DC.
I am a junior and have been there 2 years and I am starting to catch up. I have an education and a social life.
I'm on the football and wrestling teams. I live with a really nice lady that I call "Aunt" and I come
to church and Super Saturday activities every time I can. The Zone and the church have saved my life, and I have a fun,
happy life now.
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Dear Zone,
I wanted to write you to tell you of my experience today.
As you might know, I am a nurse and work part-time in pre-op, getting patients ready for their surgeries/precedures.
This morning I overheard two nurses getting ready to bring a patient back and discussing how difficult the patient was going
to be. I was already in the process of going to get the patient when one of the nurses said to me, "Oh, she's
going to be a tough one, she's deaf."
Well, Thanks to my summer in Baltimore, I had no reservations about
taking care of this patient. Not because I could remember my signing, but because I had full confidence that the patient
would be more help to me than I would be to her, and I was absolutely correct. the patient was delightful. Her
husband was able to speak but unable to hear, and togteher we got through a complicated medication list and health history.
We did a lot of writing back and forth, but we got the job done, and I was confident that I was safely sending this patient
to be sedated. She had her precedure without incident, and went home in a timely manner as would any other patient.
I think the biggest lesson of Hands On for me was that I did not see this patient as handicapped. In fact, I
felt that I was the one who was handicapped and could not speak to her. But, she graciously helped me get my job done,
and I enjoyed taking care of her.
Without my experience at Hands On, I would have felt like the other nurses this
morning and would have treated the situation as a problem instead of an opportunity. So this letter actually comes as
a thank you to you and the staff at the Deaf Shalom Zone. And also a thank you to the deaf community who opened up their
homes and hearts to us and in return opened our eyes and hearts.
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