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Cara and Joy have been involved with the deaf community and worked with deaf children for many years. Cara was a classroom teacher for deaf middle school kids for over 11 years and now serves as the lead teacher/consultant for the deaf education program in Richland One. She has been married to Mike, who happens to be Deaf, for 8 1/2 years. They adopted their daughter from Russia and, of course, signed with her. She signed her first word after being in America a little over a month! With all her early upheaval and multiple ear infections, she's had to take speech classes, but her language has been assessed at 9 months above her peers-we know that is from the immediate and constant access to language through sign language.

Joy was working at a local hospital and filled a need to assist with a camp for deaf kids in the Midlands. She immediately began taking sign classes and hanging out with the deaf community. This was actually how Joy and Cara met-volunteering to plan and work at Camp WonderHands. Joy's involvement did not stop there. She quickly became the co-director for camp, spending much time during the year planning, doing public awareness events and raising money. When she became a mother for the first time, it was a given that her daughter would sign-as she does! She daughter is 2 1/2 now and not only talks in sentences well above her peers, but continually asks "How do you say that with your hands?" Her son, a little over 1 year old, is already signing multiple words, of course his first word was MILK-a boy's gotta eat!