Over 100 deaf and hard of hearing students attend Deaf Field Day

Liberty University hosted Deaf Field Day Oct. 21, welcoming over 100 deaf and hard of hearing middle and high school students from Virginia and North Carolina. 

Chick-fil-A catered lunch for students before Warren “Wawa” Snipe, a popular rapper and “dip-hop” artist, spoke to them. 

“You all have dreams. You need to work towards those dreams,” he said through an interpreter.  

He encouraged the students he spoke to to set goals then work hard to achieve them. 

“None of you will get to where you (are going) without your friends,” he said. 

He told them to remember the family and friends who have prayed for them and instilled values in them. He said to appreciate the men and women God brings into
their lives. 

His T-shirts said “Sho sum luv,” and he told students to “show some love for God’s glory.”

Snipe explained how God moved in his life, transforming him from being a dancer in college to performing dip-hop, a genre of hip-hop. At Super Bowl LV, he signed the national anthem while Eric Church and Jazmine Sullivan sang. 

“If I can do this, you can do it as well,” Snipe said. “Just never give up. Never give up.”

Jackie Owen, the director of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services at Liberty, helped to bring this event to fruition. For a year, she went around the region making over 100 contacts to invite
participants. 

“We hope to do this annually,” Owen said. “(We want) the kids to have fun and to get to know each other because a lot of them are coming from different parts of the states. Most of all, we want to inspire them to dream big and set a goal to pursue a college degree and maybe one day choose Liberty for that part of their educational journey.”

The deaf community is a personal one for Owen. Her brother is deaf, and growing up, she would communicate with him through home signs and as a teenager began to study sign language. She and her brother were very close growing up, and he had a major impact on her life’s calling to serve the deaf community.

Owen depended on volunteers to make the event work. Those volunteers came from across academic disciplines, including ASL majors, camp and outdoor adventure leadership majors, the Inclusion Diversity and Equity office and the Office of Disability Accommodation Support.

Junior Kylee Welton has shaped her major and minor around camp and youth ministries. Welton had worked as a camp counselor during the summer and volunteered for this event due to her heart for the kids at the camp. She realized this was a great way to meet that need and play with kids. 

“I am able to connect with kids using words,” Welton said. “And because I do not really know their language, the hardest challenge is finding a new way to connect with them. They have a cooler way of communicating. The kids are teaching me how to talk to them.”

A variety of vendors also came for the event, including Purple Communications, who offer interpretive apps, the Deaf Ministries of Living Word Baptist Church and Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services.

At the culmination of the afternoon, two students won $2,500 scholarships to attend Liberty.

Stiner is a news reporter for the Liberty Champion. Follow her on Twitter