SMILING FACES







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LEADERSHIP

Mike Knott
Board Chair, 2023-24
As a Deaf person, serving as chair was a huge honor. Our talented board brings diverse skills and knowledge, and each director is D/deaf, Deaf-Blind, hard of hearing, a CODA, a parent, or someone with a connection to and a heart for our Community. BridgesDHH continues to provide much-needed support and services across the state, growing from Middle Tennessee to open BridgesWEST and now BridgesEAST and reaching into bordering states.
As someone who uses the programs and services BridgesDHH provides, I know firsthand their quality and the importance of our serving from birth through elder years. BridgesDHH is committed to our mission to build access, equity, and inclusion in partnership with the D/deaf, Deaf-Blind, and Hard of Hearing communities through advocacy, education, empowerment, and effective communication, and from our wonderful board to our incredible staff, led by our amazing CEO, we have the skills and care to do great things. Most importantly, we have the support and leadership of the Community we serve.
Wonderful things are happening and will continue because of your support. “Thank you” cannot begin to express our gratitude and excitement for the fiscal year just ended, and I'm excited to continue to serve as we move forward into this new fiscal year. -MK
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Lynn Winans
Board Chair, 2024-25
As the mother of a child with hearing loss and the wife of a CODA, I can speak first hand to the important role BridgesDHH serves in our community. I have been involved with BridgesDHH for over ten years and have seen the tremendous impacts we have made in expanding access for the Deaf, Deaf-Blind, and Hard of Hearing through our programs and services. When I first joined the Board in 2012, I could not have envisioned the growth we have successfully undertaken. It’s been inspiring to see the visions we outlined in the strategic plans become reality. That happens because we have a great leadership team, a supportive board, and an engaged community. With those strong foundations in place, our future plans continue to take shape. As we approach our centennial in just a few years, we have much to celebrate and look forward to!

Nancy Denning-Martin,
President & CEO
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.
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.
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.
MISSION
to build access, equity, and inclusion in partnership with the D/deaf, Deaf-Blind, and Hard of Hearing communities through advocacy, education, empowerment, and effective communication
VISION
a more just and inclusive world with no barriers
VALUES
In our service and decision making, we strive to remain faithful to and to express these values:
Integrity, acting with fidelity to our values
Intention, acting with purpose and meaning
Honesty, valuing truth
Relationship, being in community with one another
Respect, acting with honor and kindness for all
Stewardship, respecting and utilizing wisely those precious resources of time, talents, people, and finances entrusted to us











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LOGO
CONTACT US
BridgesTN
935 Edgehill Avenue
Nashville, TN 37203
615.248.8828 (voice)
615.290.5147 (video phone)
BridgesEAST
P.O. Box 5306
Johnson City, TN 37602
423.818.1222 (voice)
423.615.9051 (videophone)
BridgesWEST
2655 Union Avenue Ext.
Memphis, TN 38112
901.701.6800 (voice)
901.61203416 (video phone)

For more information, pictures, and program descriptions, please visit www.bridgesfordeafandhh.org, or see us on social media!