Jennings gives gift of hearing

ASHWAUBENON - The roar of the crowd after a touchdown, it is one of many sounds Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings is no longer taking for granted.

In March, Jennings and his wife, Nicole, joined a group of NFL players in Tanzania. They helped fit children and adults with more than 1,700 hearing aids.

“We fit the kids of the adults or whoever with the hearing aid and you could go bop, bop, bop, bop, bop and the first bop you see like a twitch,” said Greg Jennings. “You don't see a whole lot, but you know they heard something. Like that in itself, you get several different, an array of reactions.”

The Jennings, along with Northern Lights Clinic in Ashwaubenon, is planning to help more people hear. They raised $2,000 for the Starkey Hearing Foundation.

“One of the things people don't recognize is that hearing loss is the number one disability in the United States,” said Jamie Benson, the practice administrator at Northern Lights Clinic.

With Jennings help, the Starkey Hearing Foundation is a step closer to reaching its goal of fitting one million hearing aids by the end of this decade.

“It's really just a life changing experience,” said Jennings.