For much of her early life, Bobbi Guerrette experienced the world in near silence. Born with bilateral microtia and atresia — a rare condition where both ears are underdeveloped and hearing is severely impaired — Bobbi had no functional hearing: one ear was completely closed, and the other could not provide sound.

Last winter, after a six-year hiatus, the Baxter Seagulls basketball team returned to the court, bringing new energy to Maine’s deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Representing the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing/Governor Baxter School for the Deaf, their comeback was made possible in part by the Percival P. Baxter Foundation for Maine’s Deaf & Hard of Hearing Children (PPBF), whose support provided the team with brand-new uniforms.