Write a commentOn Thursday, January 19th, Team Fitzhugh synergized to help raise money in honor of Lucy, a very special Literacy Therapy Dog that brought great joy and confidence to readers at Fitzhugh Park School over the past six years.
Lucy passed away unexpectedly recently and to honor her memory, the profit from this fundraiser was to be donated to Pet Partners of Central New York to help support their work with our special furyr friends. Students brought their favorite stuffed animal and donation.
During an “FPS Morning Announcements Exclusive,” student leader, Lauren Adkins interviewed Mary Gilbert of Pet Partners of Central New York. Lauren asked, “What inspired you to train animals to work with people?” “Each found we had an animal that was really good with and loved children and people. The kids would read to Lucy in the library and it was a really relaxing time for them and it helped students to practice reading without having the stress of reading in front of other people,” said Gilbert. She added, “We enjoy doing it; our animals enjoy doing it so we wanted to find a way that we could do it in the public schools. Our animals also go to hospitals and nursing homes. To do that, you also have to have insurance. And you have to have dogs that have been tested and trained. They are very special dogs, cats and other animals that do this. It was my own dog, Lucy, that inspired me and Mike. Maxx is Maureen’s inspiration.”
On behalf of Team Fitzhugh, Lauren presented Mary a check for $345.28. Mary explained, “This will be going into a scholarship account that will train and provide funds for other people that want to do this type of work but find that it is financially prohibitive for them. So we do have a scholarship program available for people that have the kind of animal that would be good at this and need a little bit of help, so thank you so, so much, all of the students here. This is my first home; this was the first door that opened up to Lucy and I can’t tell you how touched I am by this. Thank you so much.”
