Charitable Gift Giving

This coming weekend on Long Island, the Guide Dog Foundation will be having its annual Bike-a-thon. I love to bike and this event is only a short drive from my house, so I’ll be participating with my sweetie Lisa and her brother.

This will be Lisa’s first major biking event since undergoing major surgery only a few months ago, so it’ll be an exciting day for us. And we’re both excited about petting the dogs at the end of the ride than the ride itself 🙂 I’ll try to post some pictures here of the event.

If you’re looking for a great charity to donate to for a tax deduction as the year comes to a close, and if you enjoy this blog, please consider a donation to our donation page:

http://www.active.com/donate/GuideDogFoundation10/LHsieh

Your donations will help two great causes:

The Guide Dog Foundation raises, trains, and provides guide dogs, at no charge, to those who are visually impaired or have special needs. Guide Dogs can be trained to help give these people independence, mobility, companionship, and vastly improve their quality of life.

America’s VetDogs also trains dogs to become guide, service and therapy dogs for disabled veterans throughout the country.

If you’re interested in a great gift, consider going to their online store, where you can get t-shirts, caps, sweatshirts,  holiday cards, stuffed animals (like the cute little golden retriever to the right), tote bags, pins, and other great gifts with the Guide Dog Foundation logo.

Thanks for your support for this cause and event that has special significance to me!

UPDATE: here are some pictures from the event!

Lisa and her brother Jack biking for Seeing Eye Dog Foundation. She did great!

Greeting the adult dogs in the kennels

Greeting the adult dogs in the kennels.

The moment I was waiting for all day: Puppies!

Sleepy puppy!

Happy Puppy!

Pensive Puppy!

The day was beautiful, and the turnout was pretty good. We biked around the neighborhoods of Smithtown where the Guide Dog Foundation is located. Afterwards, we were brought on a tour of the Guide Dog Foundation’s facilities. We saw the housing area where people who are adopting guide dogs stay to get trained on how to work with their dogs. We heard about the incredible process it takes to train these dogs, and then saw a bunch of adult dogs-in-training in the kennels, who like all good dogs were very happy to see us. And then the highlight of the day were the PUPPIES! They were the softest, cutest, most adorable creatures I’ve ever seen. They were a little tuckered out (two tour groups had gone before us), but after they shook the sleep from their eyes they were excited and savored the puppy petting almost as much as the humans did.

The bike tour itself wasn’t as polished as others like the MS 150 bike tours, but I didn’t mind that one bit. It just meant that more of my registration money went to help train guide dogs, as opposed to providing bells and whistles for the bikers.  I learned that to train just one dog to be suitable to be a guide for a disabled human or a returning veteran, it can cost upwards of $50,000! While they get some donations from corporate sponsors, they also rely on donations from us. Consider clicking on the link above to leave a donation of your own. Do it for the puppies! 🙂