Photo by Bill Green Jackie Kanekuni, the interpreting operations coordinator at Maryland's Communication Service for the Deaf, uses a video phone to converse with a friend from her Frederick office.

Kanekuni, the interpreting operations coordinator at Maryland's Communication Service for the Deaf, can still remember the days when her father had few opportunities to take part in community activities because of the communication barrier.

"Frederick has changed so much for the better," she said.

Opportunities for employment, access to medical services and other daily essentials have increased significantly, she said.

"That's a big positive," Kanekuni said. Yet much also remains to be done.

Kanekuni has been involved in Frederick's deaf community since she moved here in the early 1980s to take a job at the Maryland School for the Deaf.

She worked as a dorm supervisor and counselor for five years, but left her job to raise her two daughters, Amanda and Sammy Jo.

Ten years later, when her children started school, she began to wade back in to the working world as a volunteer at Deaf Access Services, eventually taking a part-time job there in 1996.

"I always had this idea to provide communication services," she said.

Kanekuni watched as the nonprofit experienced growing pains. Deaf Access Services added services to stay competitive, including a program with the American Red Cross, an American Sign Language certification program and English classes for the deaf.

About nine years ago, Deaf Access Services became affiliated with Communication Service for the Deaf.

The focus of the organization remains flexible, she said, as it moves to accommodate the needs of Frederick County's roughly 6,000 deaf residents.

Programs now focus on interpreting at community events and, for doctor's visits, housing a video relay service center and providing online interpreting. Workshops for interpreters, health seminars for senior citizens and computer classes are also on the list of CSD services.

The biggest challenge for Communication Services for the Deaf is finding enough funding, she said.

Frederick's growing deaf population can already count on finding interpreters at job placement services, Frederick Memorial Hospital and local colleges, for example. But one of Kanekuni's pet peeves is not having a deaf person available as part of an interpreting team.

"You have to have somebody who knows that experience," she said.

Kanekuni's personal vision is to see CSD continue to broaden its range of services for deaf people, including mental health counseling and advocacy.

Communication remains the biggest obstacle to full integration for the deaf population, she said.

"We have a brain, we are intelligent, we just have that barrier of communication."