So she sent her a message.  

That was five years ago, and out of this chance encounter came a new friendship for both and a new journey for Ashley. The first interaction between them was something out of a movie.  

“I went to her house to pick up the hangers,” Ashley said. “She had this big sliding door, and I’m knocking, and I can hear her dogs barking, but she didn’t come to the door.”  

The door was glass, so Ashley could see Halina, but her back was to the door. Ashley thought the dogs were too loud and she hadn’t heard her knocking.  

So she knocked again, louder this time.  

Still nothing.  

She tried one more time, and the dogs ran over to the door. Halina followed them and was surprised to see a perplexed Ashley standing there on the other side.  

Halina opened the door, and Ashley tried to talk to her.  

“She made a ‘one minute’ gesture and grabbed some paper and a pen,” Ashley said. “And that’s when I realized she was deaf.”  

The two have children close in age, and Halina told Ashley she didn’t know a lot of people in the area. They exchanged phone numbers and have been friends ever since. That interaction was the start of a journey Ashley never could’ve predicted for herself.  

She began inviting Halina to hang out with her and her friends, but she felt bad when they were all talking and couldn’t include Halina in the conversations because no one knew sign language.  

“She didn’t know what we were saying, and I wanted her to feel included,” Ashley said.  

That desire to make her newfound friend feel included is what led Ashley to Northcentral Technical College (NTC). She enrolled in a short summer program to learn sign language with another friend from their group. Once she knew the basics, she was able to begin communicating with Halina.  

“She taught me a lot of sign I didn't know,” Ashley said. “We hung out a lot, and I learned a lot from her.”  

Originally, she simply desired to communicate with her friend, but Ashley realized she had a skill that could help more people when she saw that her child’s school was hiring an interpreter.  

“They needed someone A.S.A.P,” she said. “I didn’t have a license, but I knew sign language, and I offered to help temporarily until they could find an interpreter.”  

She was supposed to stay for four months. She ended up staying the entire 2023-2024 school year.  

The summer following the school year, they asked her if she would be willing to go to school to become a licensed interpreter and then come back and work for them.  

That brought her back to NTC as she enrolled in the Sign Language Interpreting in Education program.  

And last Saturday, she gave the graduate speaker address entirely in sign language.  

“It shows firsthand how important sign language is,” Ashley said. “It flipped the roles and demonstrated for the audience what it’s like to have an interpreter.”  

Chanel Volpel, one of Ashley’s instructors in the program, provided the verbal interpretation of her speech.  

Ashley will begin working at the school in the fall, serving as the ears and voice for deaf students.  

“For all kids that are that young, trying to come up with sentences is hard enough,” she said. “Add in learning signs and trying to produce sentences in sign language, and it’s really difficult. As an interpreter, you have to try to figure out what they’re saying and try to come up with words to match the student. It’s hard work but so rewarding.”  

Ashley is no stranger to hard work, and the Sign Language Interpreting in Education wasn’t her first program at NTC. It wasn’t even her second.  

Her journey at NTC began as a junior in high school when she began at the alternative high school. A few years later, she enrolled and graduated from the phlebotomy program. After completing that program, she felt she wanted more. She enrolled in the medical laboratory technician program, but she realized she loved working with people, so she switched to the medical assistant program and graduated in 2022.  

With that background and extensive medical knowledge, one day Ashley would like to work as a medical interpreter. Medical interpreting is very difficult because it has a lot of terminology, and a lot of that terminology needs to be expanded on since a lot of terms don’t have a sign and need to be finger spelled. With her background, Ashley already knows what the terms mean, which would help the flow of conversation.  

“Medical interests me, and interpreting interests me,” she said. “This way, I feel like I can put both of my skills to work.”  

Although she has finished her program, Ashley remains busy and is always finding ways to help others. She is currently a surrogate for a couple in California.  

“I always wanted to be a surrogate,” she said. “I had family and friends who have had fertility trouble, and I always knew I wanted to help.”  

Through all of these changes over the past five years, Ashley and Halina have remained strong friends. Their children have attended each others’ birthday parties, they have sleepovers with Halina and her son and the two women have had many fun evenings together.  

“When we’d go out socially, I would talk and be interpreting,” she said. “It was a lot of fun.”  

Though the Sign Language Interpreting in Education program is challenging, Ashley said it was so rewarding.  

“I love helping to bring people together, including people and introducing people to each other,” she said. “This is my way to help.”