Bill Clinton makes guest appearance at Starkey gala in St. Paul

Published 4:44 pm Monday, July 16, 2018

By Kristi Belcamino

Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Former president Bill Clinton made a guest appearance at the 2018 Starkey Hearing Foundation gala in St. Paul on Sunday evening.

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“Most of us are here because we think — among other things — that we are better off doing something good for somebody else than tearing them down,” Clinton said. “We believe in holding hands and taking a flying leap of faith instead of trying to drive people apart.”

Clinton, who noted that he was wearing his own set of Starkey hearing aids and that they were nearly invisible, said that half of all hearing issues were preventable and almost all the other cases were treatable, and yet 80 percent of the people who suffer from hearing issues live in places that are too poor to afford hearing aids. And many of them are children, he said.

Clinton referred to a series of videos played earlier at the gala showing people in countries like Afghanistan and Zambia weeping with joy after they received Starkey hearing aids. “Children in poorer countries are seven times more likely to have hearing problems than in countries like our own,” he said.

Clinton’s speech was focused on asking people to give what they could to support the Starkey Foundation, which gives 10 percent of its profits to help others hear.

“They will never grow up to learn, they will never grow up to work, to feel fulfilled unless you help,” he said.

Clinton said he has attended five hearing aid fittings with Starkey Foundation founder Bill Austin in Africa and Latin America.

When Austin said he wanted to give away 50,000 hearing aids, Clinton said he told Austin, “You can do better than 50,000 a year. You can do twice as many.”

As a result, Austin made a goal to give away one million hearing aids by 2020, Clinton said.

“Late last year, three years early, he hit the million mark,” Clinton said.

Starkey Foundation Founders Bill Austin and his wife, Tani Austin, are rich, and not because of money, Clinton said, but because of their service.

“As far as I’m concerned they are the wealthiest people in this country,” he said. “Two million people are able to hear because of them.”

By donating to the foundation, people are “taking a real step for the future of our grandchildren because whether we admit it or not, our futures are tied together.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” was honored for his activism on behalf of hurricane victims in Puerto Rico. Miranda raised more than $2 million to aid in the U.S. territory’s recovery after it was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Miranda was scheduled to attend the gala but announced Friday that a scheduling change forced his withdrawal.

Other celebrity guests included actor Forest Whitaker, musicians Alice Cooper, Robbie Krieger and Don Felder and comedians Billy Crystal and Sinbad.

Composer, songwriter and actor Paul Williams was honored with the Humanitarian Award and sang his Academy Award-nominated song “Rainbow Connection” from “The Muppet Movie.”

The annual “So the World May Hear Awards Gala” is a star-studded fundraising event held at the St. Paul RiverCentre to honor high-profile philanthropists, which have recently included Richard Branson, Jennifer Garner and George W. Bush.