This post originally appeared on OTYCD in April 2018.
Help an Illinois-based Lutheran church program that supplies comfort dogs to victims of American tragedies, such as the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in Parkland, Florida, the concert shooting in Las Vegas, and the Boston Marathon Bombings.
The Lutheran Church Charities’ K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry debuted in August 2008. The dogs help victims of tragedies by giving them something relaxing and joyful to concentrate on. In the course of playing with the dogs, victims find it easier to talk about what happened to them–an act that some survivors struggle with.
The team of comfort dogs features Golden Retrievers. Many are named for characters who appear in the Bible. Lutheran Church Charities states they have more than 130 trained comfort dogs helping people in 20 states.
The church never charges for visits from its comfort dogs. It relies on donations to underwrite the program.
Meet the dogs on the LCC K-9 roster and find their individual Facebook pages:
https://www.lutheranchurchcharities.org/meetthedogs-165459-953204.html
Donate to cover the travel expenses for the LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs’ trip to Parkland, Florida, following the Valentine’s Day 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School:
Donate to the general fund for the LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs Ministry:
https://www.lutheranchurchcharities.org/give-lcc-k-9.html
See the main page for Lutheran Church Charities, which created and maintains the comfort dogs program:
https://www.lutheranchurchcharities.org
See the LCC K-9 Crisis Response page, which features photos of events the dogs have responded to, and the people they’ve served:
https://www.lutheranchurchcharities.org/cr.html
Request a site visit from the LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs:
https://lcc.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/366/responses/new
Request an emergency visit from the LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs:
https://lcc.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/1148/responses/new
If you live in Northern Illinois or near Grand Island, Nebraska, you can become an apprentice comfort dog trainer:
https://www.lutheranchurchcharities.org/volunteer-k-9-apprentice.html
Meet the team who trains the comfort dogs:
https://www.lutheranchurchcharities.org/trainers.html
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Like LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/k9comfort/
Follow it on Twitter:
@K9ComfortDogs
Shop the LCC K-9 store, which has a stuffed toy Golden Retriever and a coloring book that features the comfort dogs:
https://www.lutheranchurchcharities.org/store.html
Read a CNN story about the LCC K-9 comfort dogs’ visit to survivors of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida:
https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/15/health/iyw-orlando-comfort-dogs-trnd/index.html
Read an NBC Miami story on the LCC K-9 comfort dogs’ visit to MSD students in Parkland, Florida:
One Thing You Can Do 