When Glenda and Raphael moved to a quiet street in Newton, Massachusetts, they were quickly welcomed with open arms by the families who lived in their neighborhood.

Residents of this neighborhood do whatever they can to help each other, treating one another like family. The community was overjoyed when Glenda gave birth to her daughter Samantha, and when they all learned a year later that the little girl was deaf, they decided to all learn sign language so that they could communicate with her.

Raphael explained that Samantha loves talking to people who know sign language and becomes very social when people understand her. In contrast, she becomes very sad and withdrawn when people can’t communicate with her. Knowing this, the neighbors decided to get together at someone’s house once a week to learn sign language, enlisting the help of American Sign Language teacher Rhys McGovern.

Rhys was particularly touched and surprised by what the neighbors were doing, as he knows from experience that even some parents of deaf children don’t bother to learn sign language.

“…Sam has a full community that’s signing and communicating with her and her family, and it is a beautiful story,” Rhys said.

At first, the neighbors thought they’d be lucky if they could get 12 people to come every week, so they were very surprised when the classes quickly grew to more than 20! Glenda and Raphael could not believe how fortunate they were to be living in such a kind and supportive neighborhood.

Residents of the neighborhood have said that they are grateful to Sam for bringing them even closer than they were before. Find out more about this amazing story in the video below!