Alumni Speakers, Family Award Featured at Child’s Voice Gala

Two graduates of Child’s Voice sharing their stories and honoring a family devoted to children with hearing loss were among the highlights of the annual Child’s Voice Autumn Gala, held on October 26 at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center.

Child’s Voice, based in Wood Dale and Chicago, helps children with hearing loss learn to listen and to speak. Students wear hearing aids and/or cochlear implants and programs use a child-focused, research-based curriculum, all with the end goal of transitioning graduates back to their neighborhood schools.

The Child’s Voice program also includes early intervention services and audiology testing and support. At its two locations in Wood Dale and the Roscoe Village neighborhood in Chicago, Child’s Voice serves nearly 400 children and their families each year.

At the Gala, Danny Stratis of Westchester and Abby Lewis of Barrington shared updates from their lives after Child’s Voice.

Abby told the audience that in elementary school she participated in choir, plays, speech tournaments and running club. During summer camp, she participated in all activities but especially loved the zipline.

She is especially proud of already taking three minutes off her time since starting cross country at the beginning of this school year.

“Child’s Voice gave me the tools to be the best person I can be,” she told the audience.

Danny Stratis recalled that his parents knew Child’s Voice was the place for him when they heard children laughing during a visit.

“It takes intense therapy, hard work, and dedication to learn how to hear and speak,” he said, but added that he remembers always being happy at Child’s Voice.

“I feel like I am the luckiest kid in the world. I feel so lucky to have always been surrounded by helpers.”

The Pergament family, winners of the 2019 Voice From the Heart Award, are devoted to helping children with special needs. Dr. Eugene Pergament is an emeritus faculty member at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine and one of the world’s leading reproductive geneticists. Geraldine Pergament is a developmental psychologist who worked primarily with children with emotional disturbances. The Pergament’s involvement with Child’s Voice includes funding the start-up of Child’s Voice’s Early Intervention Center located in Roscoe Village.

Daughters Rachel and Deborah Pergament followed in their footsteps. Rachel was a professor at UCLA and also served as the Director of the Roseville Library System in Roseville, California. Rachel served on the Child’s Voice Board and also created the partnership Child’s Voice now has with Beit Micha, a multidisciplinary center focused on the therapeutic and educational needs of children with hearing loss based in Tel Aviv.

Deborah Pergament founded the Children’s Law Group, a law firm devoted to helping special-needs children and their families, and is considered a leading advocate in the area of special-education law in Illinois. Children’s Law Group prevailed in a case involving a child with cochlear implants. Deborah also served on the board of Child’s Voice.

The Autumn Gala raised $105,000 for Child’s Voice, thanks to generous supporters, donors, sponsors, families, and friends. Read more about the Gala at childsvoice.org/blog.

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