Raise Money for Animal Charities

Hello, my name is Harriet Lavoie. This campaign is to help my daughter, Nicole, fundraise money for a) sewing equipment and supplies so that she can create items to be sold and donated to fundraise money for service dogs and other animal charities  b) money for shipping donations both the ones she will create and those she receives from people donating from the many letters she writes and c) money to donate directly to service dogs for their care and training along with direct donation for other animal charities. Nicole has multiple medical conditions, some rare, which she is unable to receive much help for, both in services or financial.  In 2009 we received her blessing. Her service dog Austen. Austen helps Nicole in more ways than we could have imagined. Not only does she do her job thoroughly, but she also is an incredible companion and best friend. Austen has given Nicole a new lease on life and given her the insight to see she can make a difference in the world even with her disability. Austen comes from the Lions Foundation of Canada. A non-government funded foundation which places service dogs with people in need. They offer service dogs for canine vision, hearing ear, autism assistance, diabetic alert, special skills (for physical needs), and seizure response.  These dogs cost $25,000 to train and are placed at no cost to the eligible receiver. Austen is such a special dog that she has expanded Nicole’s awareness of service dogs. Nicole’s father was in the military, and Nicole now also wants to include PTSD dogs and First Responder dogs into her fundraising. Knowing how much of a blessing and friend Austen can be, Nicole can understand just a bit how important it could be for these amazing and brave people to have a dog of their own. She will be working to help raise money so that more PTSD dogs and First Responder dogs can be trained. The Lions Foundation has an auction ever year. Nicole would use the sewing equipment and supplies so that she could create items for the auction so that they could hopefully raise more money.   She also hopes that she can create items and have them be sold at crafts shows to help raise money and awareness of the needs for service dogs. I know Nicole will do all she can so that more service dogs can be trained and placed for all people who are in need of them.  She would be forever thankful for any amount of money you could donate at any time. Thank you as a mom for reading this and giving my daughter a chance to make a difference. I see a light in her eyes that has dimmed for a few years. Struggles she has overcome but this has given her life back. My many thanks. EDIT: Since the start of this campaign Austen has retired. In November 2017 a new dog Snitch started working for Nicole. You can follow their journey on instagram at #ehmoochie Nicole now also does embroidery along with her sewing. Nicole has seen so many wonderful animal charities she has decided to raise money and donate items to other animal charities too. Service dogs will remain her most focused charities but she has been working on donating sewn items to other animal charities. Also she has received a few people requesting sewn items to be done when she's able to and with her Mom's help. In exchange for her time and supplies she accepts donations to animal charities.