Durham College receives generous donation from Harmonize for Speech Fund

December 16, 2010

Pictured from left to right are Megan Forte and Elizabeth Lall, students in the Communicative Disorders Assistant (CDA) program; Elizabeth Ludlow, program co-ordinator and professor in the CDA program; Greg Goodall, treasurer of the Oshawa Horseless Carriagemen; and Lucia Lorenzatti, a CDA student at a cheque presentation held on campus on December 9. The CDA program received $2,500 from the Harmonize for Speech Fund.

The Communicative Disorders Assistant (CDA) graduate certificate program at Durham College recently received an early holiday gift when it was presented with a cheque for $2,500 from the Harmonize for Speech Fund during a presentation held at the Oshawa campus on December 9.

The Harmonize for Speech fund is a service project of the Ontario District Association of Chapters of Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Singing in America (Barbershop Harmony Society). Ontario Barbershoppers work together to raise money for the fund, which supports speech-related projects at hospitals, clinics and treatment centres; the Speech and Stuttering Institute; the treatment of vocal disorders; projects and seminars of the Ontario Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists; textbooks, scholarships, bursaries and supplies for students attending various provincial post-secondary institutions; and more.

A portion of the funding being donated to Durham College was raised by the Oshawa Horseless Carriagemen, who hold an annual raffle with ticket proceeds going to the Harmonize for Speech fund. Durham College CDA students and faculty members help sell tickets to the raffle each spring.

“I am thrilled to accept this wonderful donation to Durham College’s CDA program from the Oshawa Horseless Carriagemen Barbershopper Group and the Harmonize for Speech fund,” said Elizabeth Ludlow, program co-ordinator and professor in the CDA program with the Durham College the School of Health & Community Services. “This generous support will enable us to expand the resources being used in our classroom with a particular focus on speech and language therapy and children. On behalf of Durham College, I thank both organizations for their tremendous ongoing support.”

The money will be used to support the cost of a presentation by guest speaker Debra Goshulak, a speech-language pathologist from the Speech and Stuttering Institute, to the college’s CDA students this past fall and to purchase therapy resources and educational games and toys used in the classroom to help students learn the requirements of working with children with communicative disorders.

The college’s CDA program focuses on the development of the programming skills and communication intervention techniques required to treat communication disorders in children and adults. Students are prepared for a broad range of opportunities through training in the college’s dedicated CDA classroom, clinical resource library and hearing lab.