This blog post is part of our Deaf Culture series for Signing Time families.

If you would like to meet Deaf people in your community and get a chance to practice signing in a relaxed atmosphere, you might want to visit www.deafcoffee.com. This site provides a list of coffee socials for anyone who uses sign language. Florence Angelucci started the Deaf Chat Coffee in Batvia, Illinois. Attendance grew from a handful of people 5 years ago to about 70 people per month, including sign language students from Waubonsee Community College. Angelucci says, “We’re hoping that hearing people come here and get motivated to study sign language. We want to promote better communication between everyone, not just ourselves.”

Deaf Chat Coffee events are free and open to the public. If you want to attend with your child, you can take these steps to prepare:

• Visit www.deafcoffee.com and find a group near you
• Email the coordinator and introduce yourself
• Ask the coordinator if other children will be attending
• Brush up on fingerspelling your name and your child’s name
• Watch the Signing Time Nice to Meet You DVD and practice greeting signs together

Many Signing Time families have expressed a desire to learn more about Deaf culture as they learn and use signs from ASL at home. We came across this terrific episode of MTV’s True Life and shared it on our Facebook page a few weeks ago. We got so many comments from the people who watched it that we wanted to share it with our blog readers, too. We hope you enjoy meeting Christopher and Amanda and getting a glimpse into the joys and challenges they face in their lives. Watch “I’m Deaf” now.

Learn more!

• Find more Deaf culture resources
• Take a Signing Time class in your area
• Get Signing Time resources