“He didn't just sit there in red. He sat there in red and signed her name back to her.”
— DCist
DCist’s holiday coverage of Charles Graves connected his work to the broader D.C.-area Deaf community, particularly the Gallaudet University ecosystem that sits at the heart of American Deaf cultural life. The piece interviewed local Deaf families about why a Deaf Santa matters in a region with a high concentration of Deaf and hard-of-hearing residents.
DCist’s reporting also captured one of the foundation’s recurring observations: that Deaf parents of hearing children, hearing parents of Deaf children, and entirely Deaf families each have different but equally moving experiences with Graves. The Santa visit becomes a shared family moment rather than a translation event.
The coverage helped seed the foundation’s Mid-Atlantic relationships and set up the groundwork for later collaborations with Gallaudet on the foundation’s educational and accessibility initiatives.
