DeafPride members held a Sign Sync event Thursday night in Wirtz Hall Auditorium to raise awareness for National Deaf Awareness Week.

The student organization “glossed” over several pop hits to music and lyrics during the event. Glossing is a term used in the American Sign Language community that means a person signs concepts rather than entire sentence structures.

“There are deaf people in this world and it is their language and I think it’s our responsibility to learn a little bit to communicate with them,” said DeafPride President Kaitlyn DeVita, senior rehabilitation services major.

More than 20 of the group’s members signed classic love songs like “I Will Always Love you” by Whitney Houston, “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease and “What Does the Fox Say?” by Ylvis.

Taylor Hartman, former DeafPride vice president and graduate student, performed an ASL story about following directions that had the silent auditorium in laughter several times.

Abby Jeppson, DeafPride vice president and junior communication disorders major, described ASL as a beautiful language.

“It takes the weight off a deaf individual’s shoulders,” she said.

DeafPride’s mission statement is to bridge the gap between deaf and hearing. DeVita hopes raising deaf awareness can show the cultural inequalities between the deaf and hearing.

“What people don’t know about deafness is that people that are deaf don’t view themselves as having a disability,” she said. “They view themselves as this beautiful community with their own language that they have and that’s a complete community of itself, and hearing is, too. So we’re bringing those two together.”