By Lori Stabile for masslive.com
PALMER, Massachusetts – Fourth-graders at Old Mill Pond Elementary School have raised more than $1,800 for Canine Assistants, a Georgia-based organization that places service dogs with disabled children and adults.
As part of that fundraiser, the school hosted its sixth annual walkathon for Canine Assistants on Friday, with a real-life canine assistant – a golden retriever called Hobbes – leading the pack of children around the school track.
Because Hobbes is getting on in years – he’s 10 – he only made one lap, instead of the four that the pupils walked to reach a mile.
Virginia L. Keyes of Monson, is the local connection to Canine Assistants. Every year, she brings Hobbes to the school to show the students how he can help people with disabilities, by shutting doors, opening drawers and turning on lights.
It costs approximately $15,000 for a dog from Canine Assistants, and this past May, the school held a special ceremony for a 14-year-old girl from Uxbridge, who, thanks to the fundraising done at the school over the previous four years, got a Canine Assistants dog.
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