When Ken Laliberte visited the Beltone hearing aid office in Warwick Mall last year, Mark Zarella, a hearing aid specialist, told Laliberte a list of 10 words to repeat back to him.

“I was 0 for 10,” said Laliberte. “In denial, I broke down. It’s like he was talking a totally different language.”

That all changed on Thursday, when Laliberte was fitted with brand new, top of the line hearing aids, for free, through the generosity of the Beltone Hearing Care Foundation.

Not only could Laliberte hear better, he could hear almost perfectly. Whereas before the hearing aids he was 0 for 10, afterwards he was 6 for 6.

Laliberte’s wife, Christine Laliberte, was speechless, and then she started crying.

“You’ve changed our lives,” she said. “Our family, Ken’s one of seven, they all feel the same way.”

Laliberte’s hearing started failing in 2007, after a lifetime of work around machinery and loud noises. Much of his exposure came before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration began protecting hearing of workers. He started to have trouble understanding conversations at family gatherings, as well as hearing his wife around the house. Laliberte was able to get along all right by reading lips, but as soon as he was out of sight of the speaker, his ability to understand what was being said fell to pieces.

Zarella, the hearing aid specialist at Beltone who helped the Laliberte’s apply for the Beltone Hearing Aid Foundation, showed the couple a graph of Ken’s hearing. It showed he could hear deep, baritone sounds, but anything of a higher frequency, such as bird song, was nearly impossible to detect. Ken could hear low vowels, but not high-pitched consonants. He even had trouble hearing important signals, like smoke alarms and the click a stove makes when the burner is turned on and off. In fact, Laliberte had nearly set his house on fire last week, when he placed a bag of groceries on top of a burner without realizing it was on.

“You were playing jeopardy with words,” said Zarella. “And sometimes you’d get the word wrong.”

Laliberte and his wife had been through a lot before they got the hearing aids through Beltone. Laliberte had beat cancer twice, kidney and prostate, and had lost his job after falling ill. He wasn’t able to perform manual labor. His wife, Christine, also suffered. She got ill due to financial pressures and stress from his health problems, and lost her job in 2015. There was no way for Laliberte to get help until he visited Beltone and Zarella told him about the Beltone Hearing Care Foundation.

The Foundation provides over 100 people a year nationwide with free hearing aids. The insurance that the Laliberte’s had didn’t cover hearing aids, because insurance companies consider hearing aids to be “cosmetic” even though there is extensive research that shows the relation between strong hearing and a healthy life.

Both Zarella and Laliberte had to send letters to the Foundation before getting the award.

“You don’t realize how much stress and anxiety hearing loss causes,” said Zarella. “This is the beginning of a new chapter in [Ken’s] life.”

As a member of the Beltone Hearing Care Foundation Laliberte has free and unlimited appointments with Beltone, as well as access to accessories, such as a microphone. He also has a lifetime warranty for his aids. The Foundation covered the entire $7,000 price of the hearing aids, which are bluetooth, wireless, and able to be controlled via app on a smartphone.

Zarella works for Beltone in Warwick and Cranston, and encourages everyone who thinks they’re hard of hearing to come to a Beltone office for a free hearing test and consultation. There are over 1,700 Beltone offices nationwide and nine in Rhode Island alone. You can schedule an appointment online, call an office, or even just walk right in.

“The earlier you address your hearing loss, the sooner we can save your hearing,” said Zarella. “You can try on a device for free.”

Zarella has been working with Beltone for 11 years, and grew up in Rhode Island. He said, “It’s very fulfilling work being able to help people.”

Before Ken and Christine left the office on Thursday they took pictures with Zarella and exchanged hugs.

“You’ve changed my life,” said Ken.

Then he dashed outside, excited to hear the world again.