Giving Tuesday: How you can help Guiding Eyes for the Blind

This Giving Tuesday, if you can, please consider helping Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

If you can this Giving Tuesday, please consider helping Guiding Eyes for the Blind help those who are blind or visually impaired by donating either financially or with your time.

Guiding Eyes is based about an hour from New York City, and they are a nonprofit organization who have been helping those with blindness and visual impairments since the 1950s, providing guide dogs at no charge to the recipients.

For a donation of $5,000, you can name a guide dog puppy, which means the donor will get a certificate of naming, regular updates on the puppy’s training process, and a formal announcement of the puppy’s acceptance into the formal guide dog training program (often called “puppy college”).

If the puppy successfully graduates, then the naming donor will receive notice when he or she is placed with a human student, a formal invitation to the graduation ceremony and a graduation photo of the dog.

Since $5,000 is a little pricey, one-time donations of much smaller amounts are also an option, or you could set up a monthly gift, if that’s within your budget. For a limited time, Guiding Eyes is tripling the amount donated, so even a little can have a huge impact.

If someone lives in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, or West Virginia, then you could apply to become a puppy raiser, fostering and socializing a future guide dog before they attend “puppy college.”

As part of the process, puppy raisers need to attend meetings on a regular basis throughout the nearest of the 39 regions throughout the various states.

Since everyone loves stuffies, Guiding Eyes also has some available in their online store, with an eight-inch yellow or black Labrador for $10 or a 10-inch German Shepherd for $20. They also have coffee mugs, keychains and magnets, among other items.

Through Guiding Eyes training, one pair of students met and eventually got married, and the company president completed a marathon this spring using a team of running guide dogs.

Other worthy organizations helping train guide dogs or service dogs include America’s VetDogs, Canine Companions for Independence, and the Guide Dog Foundation.

Please help your local animal aid organization this Giving Tuesday, if you can. It might make a difference in the life of a stranger, like in the first episode of the Netflix documentary series Dogs.