San Marcos helped to raise $2,500 for the U.S. Veterans Service Dog (USVSD) program in September. Kyle VFW Post 12058 hosted a telethon to fund the training and placement of service dogs for veterans in Texas. Rotary agreed to provide $1,250 as a match for individual donations up to $1,250.
USVSD provides a service dog to a veteran who has a physical or mental disability obtained while serving in combat. The goal is to help veterans return to a new "normal” by training and placing quality service dogs with veterans. It takes two to three years to train a service dog and costs between $50,000 and $100,000 per dog to train. The dogs are provided free to the veterans. texasservicedogs.org
Rotary first learned about this program when Steven Cook (pictured) spoke about it to the club on March 4. He is active at the Kyle VFW post and is also the Director of Fund Development for the Texas service dog program.