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Fund Second Chance 2016-2017

Human-Animal Interaction and Education Advocates (HAIEA ) grew out of the founders' experience bringing kids and animals together, first for entertainment and fun, but noting the positive effects on kids (and adults) that interacting with animals had.

We create programs that benefit animal welfare, and impact kids and families in our community through positive youth development.

The goal of our program is to help dogs at our local animal shelter get their "forever home" by giving them basic obedience training. The volunteer trainers are students in need of community service hours to complete their court-ordered requirements for truancy violations.

We built the program from scratch, by cold-emailing all of the animal shelters in North Texas, as well as agencies in charge of student services (truancy courts, service organizations, alternative education programs, etc). From these contacts, we created relationships with Collin County Truancy court judge John Payton and Plano Animal Services.

When a student commits to our program to earn community service hours, it's a real committment. They are required to have 100% attendance for a 5-week program with 3 evening sessions per week. In the course of this program, the dogs learn "come", "sit", "stay", and have some work on their "bad manners", some of which may have resulted in their being returned to the shelter. The students learn about communication, show leadership, patience, compassion, and honoring their committments.

After our first year in operation, the shelter has confirmed that our trainees have had an above-average rate of adoption. The students, parents, and shelter staff are enthusiastic about the results and seeing it continue.

We have designed the program to be replicated to multiple animal shelters and solicit student volunteers from other court programs and service organizations. However, to do so, we need to hire staff, buy supplies, and pay for transportation costs so our volunteers can start building a copy of this successful program at another shelter.

We will use this money for:
- Paying a dog training instructor, facilitator/counselor, and photographer/social media helper
- Dog treats, pouches, agility supplies, T-shirts
- Transportation costs

Our first class for the 2016-17 school year starts at Plano Animal Shelter in November and if we had the funds by the end of October we could start building the next copy of the program right away.

Even though most people would prefer to adopt a dog from an animal shelter rather than a breeder, one of their reservations is that shelter dogs have "problems" with behavior, socializing, or aggression. Programs like ours have the potential to change this reputation and make adopters feel confident that a shelter dog will be well-adjusted, socialized, and a perfect forever pet.

Thanks so much for your donation and we will use it responsibly to help animals and kids.
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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $20 
    • 7 yrs
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Organizer

Kevin Smith
Organizer
Princeton, TX
Human Animal Interaction And Education Advocates
 
Registered nonprofit
Donations are typically 100% tax deductible in the US.

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