Hidden Gems: Meet Jaime Vernon of Songs for Sound

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaime Vernon.

Hi Jaime, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In 2009, a working mother named Jaime Vernon took her daughter, Lexi, in for a full hearing test. After 13 months of bad information, misdiagnosis and all her suspicions being dismissed as “fine”, Jaime heard those fateful words, “Your child is deaf.” Lexi, now 13 months of age, had missed over a year of hearing and language. From no newborn hearing screening given to a failed hearing test at ten weeks of age, Jaime repeatedly heard “she’s fine.”

Upon the deafness diagnosis, Jaime felt hopeless and imagined total isolation for her daughter. Her thoughts scattered to Lexi living away from home for a special education even picturing a place with trees with no leaves, then suddenly she heard these words from Lexi’s Audiologist, “we think Lexi will be a great candidate for a cochlear implant, a device that brings back sound to the deaf.”

The heartache and fear were immediately replaced with HOPE. Four months later, Lexi, 18 months of age, was implanted bilaterally (both ears) with cochlear implants. Three weeks later, now 19 months of age, Lexi’s sound was turned on for the first time. Her journey to hear and use spoken language began.

Now, Lexi is 13 years old and thriving at the academically and athletically challenging Brentwood Academy (Brentwood, TN), is a very good travel softball pitcher playing for the elite program, The Birmingham Thunderbolts. She is currently ranked 7th in the nation for pitchers in the class of 2026. She hears very well and her speech is incredible. Lexi loves to hear laughter and to laugh. She listens to music often through her bluetooth capabilities of her cochlear implants and plays softball, basketball and volleyball.

The “songs” in Songs for Sound is because of all the lullabies Lexi missed. Her mom, Jaime, would cry, not understanding why her daughter wouldn’t respond to her. Every doctor said “she’s fine”. Once Lexi could hear her mom, there was a moment Jaime felt her head fall onto her shoulder while singing her to sleep at 21 months of age. At that moment, Jaime recalls “time stood still. I never wanted anyone to go without a lullaby, the music playing while dancing with their daughter at her wedding, or healing while listening to music when a loved one passes away.”

Jaime’s passion is to help everyone navigate their hearing health journey and reach their greatest potentials. Whether it’s a parent of a newly diagnosed child or a senior in search of affordable hearing aids, Jaime does whatever it takes to help people hear. Providing good information and support is very important to Jaime.

Songs for Sound creates a tailored pathway to empower people to take control of their hearing health journey. We LISTEN, counsel and help people reach their fullest potentials by providing the best hearing resources and information and walking hand-in-hand with people. We clear out the clutter and find a personalized match for audiology, devices and therapies based on the needs, wants and financial situation of every single person. Simply put: we listen, we become a friend, we love and we help.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Has it been a smooth road? Not at all! Rewarding? YES. Extremely. However, starting and running a nonprofit of this size has so many obstacles. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I started this charity from a $250 donation back in 2011. I was working in development at Vanderbilt University in raising money for the schools. Interestingly enough, I was called fundraising before I was called to start a nonprofit. I’m quite positive that was by God’s design. I learned everything I know from a mentor and superior, Laurie. She taught me so much about fundraising as well as allowed me to work a flexible schedule to make sure I attended Lexi’s speech therapy on lunches and more at Mama Lere Hearing School (also at Vanderbilt). 

While working in that position, I had a vendor and friend had a company called MCR up in Cleveland, Ohio. While I was working Lexi was finally diagnosed and I was sharing my journey with him throughout the entire process. His name is Shawn and he invested a $250 donation when I started the charity. It was my first donation and I still remember to this day! Shawn had a lifelong friend Who had cochlear implants. His friend, Joe, even shared his story with me and comforted me when I needed someone to talk to you about our journey and fears for Lexi.

Since that day, I’ve had to balance being both a CEO, director of operations, a fundraiser, and helper of everyone who needs hearing loss solutions. There are so many hats charity directors have to wear and we were under such strict guidelines by the federal government. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely believe in all of those guidelines however we often run on skeleton staff yet are asked to do provide some of the greatest needs in the world. It’s incredibly challenging and most directors like me, sleep a little less than others and we work way more than we should.

However, I live a very fulfilled life. Many say I work too much, however we are in unparalleled times where people are starving for help, love, a good story, a pat on the back, a hug, and someone that just says it’s going to be OK. My team knows that that is our primary mission! TO CHANGE THE WORLD ONE PERSON (and EAR) AT A TIME!

So, a smooth road? Not at all. Worth it? Absolutely, 100%!

We’ve been impressed with Songs for Sound, Inc., but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I am so excited you asked this question! Our mission has three pillars. And we need support to accomplish these things and continue to spread love and light and help people here and live their best lives. You see hearing loss is often overlooked because first, it’s invisible. Second, people are scared or turned off because I’m wearing something on her ears. I don’t really understand it because my 13-year-old gets it and she lives her very best life because she can hear and connect with other people, she can laugh and giggle with her friends, she can hear the music! That is our tagline. We want everyone to be able to hear sounds as beautiful as music and heal through life hurts and thrive! We want people to have thriving careers and be able to communicate with the people around them. We want our veterans and soldiers returning from overseas to be able to hear and receive love and communicate with their families around them. We want to children to be able to have great literacy scores… Low literacy rates are very common in untreated pediatric hearing loss. We want adults and children to not suffer from depression and isolation because they cannot hear or hear well.

We have three pillars: Outreach, Care Team, Hardaway’s Hope

OUTREACH:
We have a mobile hearing health experience that has SIX “DIY” hearing-testing stations. Our software is unmatched provided to us by a company, Otohub. We provide free hearing tests and give people a chance to do this privately on their own. We educate through the software about the importance of hearing and we send information electronically including test results.

We tour the country and serve large community events such as airshows or community festivals or even go indoors at a large expo on the weekends. During the weekdays, we visit community partners such as a YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs, a Del Webb community, and also businesses and corporations. We like to serve high-risk populations first such as veterans, seniors, and underserved children.

We are expanding our outreach into an in-location or in-store kiosk strategy as well. More to come on that.

Businesses and corporations need to start adding hearing health services to their employee health platforms. They need to call me! 

CARE TEAM:
Once someone has taken a test at one of our kiosks, we then move them into our care team if they need further support. We don’t want them to move into a sales conversation. We want to walk them through the life of their hearing and empower people to make decisions that are best for them financially and also for their lifestyle and needs and desires in terms of their hearing. They’re all shapes and sizes of hearing devices in terms of hearing aids and cochlear implants. They’re all price points. We create a hearing health profile to make sure that we are basically creating a personalized medicine approach. We use our mission and story to bring people in and encourage them to make decisions based on a movement in a change mindset versus someone twisting their arm and spending too much money on something that they couldn’t afford in the first place.

Our Care Team is unbiased and we get to be a charity and not a sales team. People love that!

This care team then moves them into an audiologist that’s a best match for them. Audiologists come in all shapes and sizes and also personality types. It is my firm belief that people need to be with a Doctor Who matches their personality so that they can feel comfortable. This is a doctor that they could have for the rest of their life.

HARDAWAY’S HOPE:
We had a board member who had a cochlear implant. His name is John Hardaway and he lost his hearing to cancer treatments suddenly. John was a huge breath of fresh air within our organization. He inspired us to do so much good and inspired so many others in the Nashville community. 

John was a general sales manager for Brown-Forman which is a global company. He suddenly lost his ability to communicate with the world around him which was his entire job. He said “cancer took my life but my cochlear implant gave it back! “A couple of years ago, he battled cancer again and ultimately lost his life. He is a huge reason for our success and was a lifetime board member. John story is just exactly our mission and so we created a program based on his wishes and desires when he passed away. He loved watching people thrive after they could hear. He was a Philanthropist in the area of hearing loss. He wanted everyone to get help! He loved living life and communicating! 

So, when he passed, we started Hardaway’s Hope which is everything after you can hear with your hearing technology. These are programs both in person and virtually that can help you thrive with your devices and help you learn to communicate in here with your new herein lies. We are also building our first home here in Asheville called the Hardaway’s hope house which will be a center for people of all ages to come together and be with people just like them, learn success strategies & share!

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Determination, hard work ethic, LOVE, faith.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.songsforsound.org
• Instagram: songsforsound
• Facebook: Facebook.com/songsforsoundpage
• Twitter: songsforsound