Palmetto, FL – Southeastern Guide Dogs received a $10,000 grant from Publix Super Market Charities to assist their children and teen programs. These funds will provide kids companion dogs to children with significant challenges, such as vision loss. The grant will also support the Teen Guide Dog Camp, which offers teenagers a weekend experience on what it’s like to work with a guide dog, and provides parents with the tools to support their child in the decision to get a guide dog one day.
“To lose vision as a child can have lifelong effects,” said Katie Perez, Manager, children and teen programs at Southeastern Guide Dogs. “Our dogs make a tremendous impact on children and teens facing adversity.”
Southeastern Guide Dogs creates extraordinary partnerships between people and dogs. In addition to providing dogs to children, the organization breeds, raises and trains elite working dogs to meet the needs of people with vision loss and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other disabilities. All services at Southeastern Guide Dogs are provided at no cost to recipients thanks to private donations and grants like this one from Publix Charities.
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About Southeastern Guide Dogs
Southeastern Guide Dogs transforms lives by creating and nurturing extraordinary partnerships between people and dogs. Our organization operates the most advanced training facilities of any service dog organization in the world. Our experts breed, raise, and train elite working dogs—including guide dogs, service dogs, and skilled companion dogs—and provide life-changing services for people with vision loss, veterans with disabilities, and children with significant challenges such as vision loss or the loss of a parent in the military. Pursuing our mission since 1982, Southeastern Guide Dogs now has over 1,200 dogs under our auspices.
All of our services—which include state-of-the-art research on canine health and development; selective breeding; expert dog training; comprehensive on-campus student instruction; and the most robust alumni support program in North America—are provided at no cost to recipients. We rely 100% on private donations. Southeastern Guide Dogs has the distinction of being dually accredited by the two premier, global accreditation bodies: the International Guide Dog Federation and Assistance Dogs International. Learn more at www.GuideDogs.org.