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Ms. Williams from Muskegon MI is requesting a classroom visitor through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

When You Need a Hand, Find a Paw.

Help me give my students a continuous support for emotional and mental health needs through learning compassion, nurturing, and the responsibility of having a therapy dog.

  • $4,215 goal

This project expired on September 1, 2020.

This project expired on September 1, 2020.

Celebrate Black Teachers and Students

This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.

My Students

I teach participants who are 18-26 year old young adults with moderate to severe cognitive disabilities. Participants focus on adult living skills such as employment, daily living, self determination and community participation. Each participant explores different job training opportunities and we offer multiple paid work experiences. They also focus on maintaining a household, cleaning, money skills, cooking and socialization.

Teaching how to live as independently as possible for each individual participant is our main focus.

Participants complete student led IEP's which lets them each have a voice and express their personal goals and what they would like life to look at post programming.

Future planning looks different for each participant. Many look forward to moving out on their own. Many also understand the responsibility of living independently and express the need for support. Each participant works everyday to increase their independence and meet their personal goals.

My Project

The participants who attend the Transition program are young adults with disabilities. Participants have expressed the need for more social/emotional support while at school. We focus on employment, daily living, self determination and community participation skills. All participants need help throughout many aspects of their lives and struggle to complete tasks necessary to get through each day. The needs for our participants to gain meaningful independence grows each year.

In the recent years we have seen an increase in need for mental health services within our building.

In the fall of 2019 participants worked together to research what could help the needs of our building and a therapy dog was decided as a group for what could help. Participants researched and presented to our superintendent and school board which resulted in a yes from everyone to pursue a therapy dog for the program. Participants were very excited and continued their research.

Training is the final step in the process to allow a therapy dog to assist our student needs on a daily basis.

Participants often come in the building upset about something that happened at home or with friends. Many do not know how to process the demands of the day and need time to decompress. Many come from classes and work sites overwhelmed. This are just a few of the reasons our participants feel like a therapy dog would increase the success of participants each day.

Ms. Williams
Never Before Funded Grades 9-12

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Where Your Donation Goes

Visitor Total
Therapy Dog $3,500.00

Visitor cost

$3,500.00

Vendor shipping charges

FREE

Sales tax

$0.00

3rd party payment processing fee

$52.50

Fulfillment labor & materials

$30.00

Total project cost

$3,582.50

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$632.21

Total project goal

$4,214.71

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

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Project Activity

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