In our 97th year of service, BridgesDHH continued to grow, welcoming BridgesEAST to join BridgesTN, our original office, and BridgesWEST, opened in 2019. The partnership, leadership, and trust of the communities we serve is an extraordinary gift and the reason we continue to grow and thrive almost a century later. 

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In late May 2023, we began a journey to recruit and train 240 educational interpreters across the state. This five-year project will give our D/deaf and hard of hearing students the best possible language models and equal access in classrooms in all 95 counties, and in the 23-24 fiscal year, we brought on a tremendously-talented staff and recruited almost sixty mentees, several of whom have already tested and received their educational interpreting licenses in Tennessee. We expanded youth services across the state, established new partnerships for access, and increased rural outreach.

BridgesDHH is my happy place. Each and every day, we push ourselves to be more and to do more. You won't find a more strategically, efficiently, or effectively run business, and you won't find one run with more compassion, empathy, ethics, connection, and fun. Here, I have experienced the real power of a proud, welcoming, joyful, encouraging, resilient community. 

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We continue to define this civil rights work and to seek to engage and empower the community that leads us. From birth through elder years, we identify barriers and needs, removing the former and meeting the latter, and all of it is done on a foundation of excellence, innovation, and love. I am thankful for every minute and for all the extraordinary people who make this work possible.