A Waterville woman got a pair of free hearing aids Friday through the Beltone Hearing Care Foundation, the second area person this year to benefit from the program.
Joyce Morisette, 76, has “a very bad hearing loss and has been in desperate need of hearing aids for a long time,” according to a press release from Beltone New England.
“She’s very used to just smiling and nodding hoping that she will be nodding at the right time when someone is speaking to her,” said the release. “In the last year, her hearing has gotten so bad that that she can only catch a few words here and there and she can no longer carry on a proper conversation with anyone. She can’t hear people at a distance or if they turn away from her, she gets the information totally incorrect.
“It makes her want to cry all the time.”
Morisette is a retiree, who raised a son and worked in factories her entire life. She lives on insurance money and food stamps, the release said.
Morisette received two free hearing aids Friday morning at the Waterville Beltone Hearing Aid Center.
“I want to thank Felicia Curtis of the Waterville Beltone Hearing Aid Center for her amazing help,” Morisette said in the release.
She said her “good friend” Connie Francoeur wrote to Beltone on her behalf.
“This goes above and beyond the call of duty of friendship,” Morisette said. “I am extremely grateful for what they have both done for me.”
“Beltone has always had the mission of helping the world hear better through our products and professional hearing care services,” said Beltone New England President and CEO Michael Andreozzi said in the release. “This foundation gives us a new path to achieve this mission by helping deserving individuals and organizations in their communities enrich their quality of life.”
He said that the company was “completely ecstatic” to help Morisette, “who is a wonderful person in such need.”
In April, the company did the same for Michael Fernald, of Clinton, who lost his hearing in a 2012 car accident.
Curtis also helped Fernald with his hearing aids.
“It was like being able to hear for the first time,” an emotional Fernald said after the aids were fitted.
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