SPOTLIGHT RACE: Hadley Haas for PA-HD44
If you ask Hadley Haas where she is from, she couldn’t be more proud to tell you: Pittsburgh. This community has given her strength in some of her family’s toughest times and rallied with her to support others with open arms when they needed the same support. Her life has become, sometimes intentionally and sometimes through the genuine desire to serve, about helping others and paving the way for the next generation to be stronger than ours. Hadley’s story is one of resilience and seeing ways to help others in even her toughest moments.
Hadley was born in Pittsburgh, one of 4 children to her parents who were proud Catholics. Both graduates of Bishop Canevin High School, her dad was a stand out wrestler and her mom a cheerleader. Her dad was the first in his family to go to college, and they married after he graduated from Penn State and she from Carlow, a small women’s school close by. Her dad worked at Jones & Laughlin Steel Company until 1979, when he had to relocate to Michigan as the steel industry declined. Hadley and her family left Pittsburgh, but they didn’t make it a secret where their family was from when they got there.
Hadley eventually went to the University of Michigan, where she graduated with a degree in economics and communications. She began a long career in marketing and communications, but never lost the values her parents taught her - to always realize your privilege, give back to others, and put those in need first. Those values guided her involvement as a mentor and tutor, and as a big sister at Mercy Home in Chicago.
Everything in Hadley’s life changed on a family vacation in 1997. About a block from the end of a run with her dad, he suffered from cardiac arrest and passed away on the way to the hospital. He was 50 years old. The experience of losing a parent, and the impact it had on her entire family, has never been lost on her.
A few years later, Hadley met her husband Scott through work. They got married in Pittsburgh, proudly showing off the new PNC stadium and their amazing city to all of their out-of-town friends. Soon after they decided to start their own family, and Declan was born in 2003, followed by Bennett in 2006.
Shortly before Hadley and Scott discovered they were pregnant with Bennett, they took Declan in for hearing tests. He wasn’t speaking, and they wanted to figure out why. It was discovered he had moderate to severe hearing loss, which only progressed and was eventually determined to be the result of a recessive genetic trait they both carried. While the chances of either parent passing along the trait was 1 in 4, both Bennett and Declan were impacted.
Declan and Bennett qualified and received cochlear implants (Bennett, at 6.5 months, was the youngest to ever have the procedure!). But Scott and Hadley found out how challenging what used to be simple questions to answer. What would be possible for their boys? What were the best schools for them? They eventually moved back to Pittsburgh to be near family and friends, and enrolled both children in the DePaul School for Hearing and Speech.
Today, Bennett and Declan are a success story. They enrolled in public school, have incredible friends and are thriving. Hadley, however, could not stop thinking about other families that go through this without the access, support and help they had.
She first got involved with the Children’s Hospital Foundation, talking about the need to support other families like theirs. Working with the foundation, she eventually formed the Friends of the Hearing Center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, of which Hadley is chair of the board. After 10 years of fundraising, Hadley hired an educational liaison for families like theirs, who has had an incredible impact on the community. Additionally, Hadley has served as a parent representative to the state newborn hearing screening committee, attending regular meetings in Harrisburg with subject matter experts from around the state. She spends one morning a month with local pediatric residents, sharing how they can best support families like Hadley’s. And for years, she has volunteered for the Depaul School, helping them raise money and awareness for their mission and work. Instead of focusing on the challenge, she found a way to ensure families that come after hers can benefit from what she and Scott went through.
Hadley never expected to take her advocacy into politics until the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. Watching the horror from home while both of her kids were in school, she decided to do something. In 2020, Hadley became the elections chair for Moms Demand Action locally, and quickly became a co-lead of the Pittsburgh chapter. Through this work she has met with mothers who have lost their sons, families who have lost numerous loved ones through gun violence, and advocated for candidates and policy changes that will keep our kids safe.
In Harrisburg, the same compassion and sense of selflessness that has driven all of her service throughout her life will motivate her work. As a mother, she will look out for our kids and their safety. Most importantly, she will never forget what this community has done for her, and always tell us the truth, do as she says, and vote for what is right.
https://www.hadleyforpa.com/
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