The Maine Center on Deafness (MCD) is a nonprofit organization that serves people in Maine who are deaf, late-deafened or hard-of-hearing by providing resources, advocating for social equality, and helping the general public to better understand and appreciate this unique population. MCD offers services in the following areas: Civil Rights Program, Communications and Outreach, Peer Support Group, Visual Gestural Communication, Telecommunications Equipment, Emergency Notification System, information and referrals.
The Maine Department of Labor, Bureau of Rehabilitation Services (BRS) and the Maine Center on Deafness have collaborated to establish a program that will provide low income seniors with a hearing aid – at no cost to qualified individuals. The goal of the program is to increase seniors’ independence and safety by providing them access to a telephone and/or other methods of communication. The hearing aid option is an addition to the current Telecommunications Equipment Program (TEP) administered by the Maine Center on Deafness and is also funded by Maine’s Communication Equipment Fund and the Public Utilities Commission.
TEP can provide qualified Maine residents with telecommunications equipment such as an amplified or captioned telephone or flashing devices designed to alert deaf or hard of hearing individuals that the telephone is ringing. The equipment included in TEP is often distributed at no or low cost.
