MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — When Mary Ann Jividen moved to West Virginia, she fully expected that there would be services available for deaf people to utilize throughout the area. With only two hours separating her and Washington D.C., it felt like a foregone conclusion.
Shocked to find the Eastern Panhandle devoid of any such services, Jividen, who is deaf herself, took matters into her own hands.
“I was so surprised,” she said in a recent interview. “So, in 2017, I started to build everything through word of mouth.”
What she built was Eastern Panhandle Deaf Alliances, Inc., which “strives to provide the services to Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Deaf-Blind, and Late-Deafened to improve the quality of their lives,” according to the group’s Facebook page. In addition to that, the group provides case management, deaf advocacy, community education, interpreter advocacy, early family services and senior citizens services to those who need it…
