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KIRKSVILLE, MO -- One Heartland community group got the attention of some students today.

The Kirksville Quota Group teamed up with the Communications Disorders Department at Truman State University to educate young children about healthy hearing at Ray Miller Elementary School in Kirksville Wednesday morning.

The event was part of Quota Cares Month.

"It's very important. It's one of our times where we can get our name out there to the community for people to know what we do and for them to ask us for help in the future," said Quota member Janet Gooch.

Students watched a film and heard a presentation from two speech and hearing students at Truman State about how the ear works and stressed the importance of hearing protection.

More kid these days are prone to hearing very loud music and noises that specialists want to prevent hearing disorders before it's too late.

"I think it is really important to start early with hearing education, so they realize the importance and grow up using it because once you lose your hearing, you won't get it back once you lose it, so it's important to start early," said Truman Communications Disorder Student Julie Bangert.

"If you can't hear things properly, it can be hard to articulate speech and sounds. So people with hearing loss, we work with them, and we rather not want to see these kids today end up in our offices later," said Truman Communications Disorder Student Rachel Patterman.

After the presentation, there was an announcement of a poster contest themed "Crank It Down" which students can help stress the importance of turning down the volume to help them keep their hearing.

Each student as well got to take home a pair of ear plugs courtesy of Quota.