ASL Club Hosts Activist for Deaf Community

Ocean City High School’s American Sign Language Club has invited Nyle DiMarco, role model and activist for the deaf community, to speak at the Bill and Nancy Hughes Performing Arts Center on Monday, Dec. 2 at 9 a.m. DiMarco, winner of “Dancing with the Stars” and “America’s Next Top Model,” is a leader and ambassador for the deaf community. Born into a multigenerational deaf family, he is an honorary spokesperson for Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids (LEAD-K) and founder of the Nyle DiMarco Foundation, which works to improve the lives of deaf people around the world. DiMarco was a producing member of the 2018 return to Broadway of “Children of a Lesser God,” starring Joshua Jackson and Lauren Ridloff. He was also a creative collaborator on The ASL App, created by native deaf signers to teach conversational American Sign Language, according to Keppler Speakers. Through fundraising efforts, the Ocean City High School American Sign Language Club was able to invite DiMarco to give a presentation, followed by a meet-and-greet with the students. Ocean City High School ASL students will not be the only students in attendance. The American Sign Language Club extended an invitation to deaf students from other schools in New Jersey. Over 50 students from schools as far away as Bergen and Neptune will be traveling to Ocean City to hear DiMarco speak. Some of the students attending will be accompanied by former Ocean City High School ASL students who are now educational interpreters or teachers of the deaf in New Jersey. “For my ASL classes, this was a great learning opportunity, in real time, for students to see how to share their privilege of meeting Nyle DiMarco to empower and elevate the deaf community, specifically children in our area,” said Amy T. Andersen, Ocean City High School American Sign Language teacher. “This was a perfect opportunity for students to give back to a community that has given all of us so much.”