Power of radio gives youngster his hearing back

10 February 2010

94.5 Kfm, their listeners and the Dis-Chem Foundation came together in a spontaneous fundraising initiative to replace a lost hearing aid.

Dillon Harding is 16 years old and has been deaf since he fell ill with meningitis shortly after he was born. He is totally reliant on his hearing aid, but on Tuesday 9 February he dropped the aid on his way to school. The aid was only a week old and cost around R16 000.

His mother, Desiree sent a desperate plea to 94.5 Kfm, asking for the station to announce where the hearing aid was lost as she has not been able to find it and suspected someone may have picked it up.

Breakfast host, Ryan O’Connor was touched by her obvious commitment to her son as well as the simplicity of her request and made the announcement the following morning. Shortly thereafter, the station was flooded with calls from the public who committed their own money to go towards a replacement hearing aid if Dillon’s was not found.

When prankster Whackhead Simpson heard the story he committed R1,000 towards a new aid, and hundreds more was pledged by generous Capetonians who sympathized with Dillon.

Shortly after Whackhead’s pledge, the Dis-Chem Foundation called in. The Dis-Chem Foundation has partnered with Kfm on numerous occasions to help others and they came forward with a donation to cover the full cost of a new hearing aid for Dillon.

"I’m always amazed by the generosity of our listeners, there are people with massive hearts out there," said Ryan O’Connor when he announced the Dis-Chem donation shortly before 08h30, just over an hour after the initial announcement was made.

"I was just expecting people to look out for it, but the response has been phenomenal - thank you to Dis-Chem and to everybody out there," said an emotional Desiree when Ryan broke the good news to her.