Austin Dog Alliance Receives $100,000 Meadows Foundation Grant
The Austin Dog Alliance received a $100,000 grant from the Meadows Foundation and opened its new facility in Cedar Park, Texas, where it will continue its work using therapy dogs to teach social skills to youth on the autism spectrum, among other pro
Online, March 12, 2013 (Newswire.com) - The Austin Dog Alliance announced today that it was awarded a grant for $100,000 from the Meadows Foundation. The grant will help fund the Alliance's work helping children and young adults with developmental disabilities and providing handler-dog teams to local hospitals, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, schools and libraries. The award comes at a special time for the organization: the opening of the Alliance's 7.1-acre New Hope Ranch in Cedar Park on March 8.
"The Meadows Foundation grant came at an important moment, and we could not be more grateful," says Debi Krakar, Alliance Executive Director. "Requests for our services have increased dramatically, and we're completing construction of phase 1 of our New Hope Ranch and expanding our therapy-dog programs to include job-skill training for young adults and a pre-school program for young children with special needs."
The Meadows Foundation is based in Dallas, Texas, and was established by Algur H. and Virginia S. Meadows in 1948 to assist people and institutions of Texas improve the quality and circumstances of life for themselves and future generations.
"We are pleased to have the opportunity to assist the Austin Dog Alliance in constructing a facility to meet the increasing demand for dog-therapy services for at-risk children, children on the autism spectrum, hospital patients and the elderly," said Bruce H. Esterline, Vice President of Grants with the Meadows Foundation.
"Without this funding, we would not have been able to complete construction of phase 1 of our ranch," says Krakar. "We are now well positioned to offer a wider variety of programs for people of all abilities from our handicapped-accessible building and 10,500 square-foot agility field."
Austin Dog Alliance will celebrate its new location with a Grand Opening Gala at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 23 at its new location at 1321 West New Hope Drive in Cedar Park.
About Austin Dog Alliance
Located in Cedar Park, Texas, just north of Austin, the Austin Dog Alliance, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization, provides unique group social-skills development programs for children with autism spectrum disorder that incorporate the use of canine-assisted therapy and applied behavior analysis (ABA). Therapeutic programs are provided through a partnership with ABA Today, LLC. Austin Dog Alliance also provides handler-dog teams to local hospitals, rehabilitation centers and nursing homes, and schools and libraries through its Bow Wow Reading Dog program. The Alliance's staff of professional dog trainers also provides a variety of dog training classes, including dog manners, pet therapy, agility and summer camps for both typically developing kids and those with special needs.
The Austin Dog Alliance's "Build Our Forever Home Capital Campaign" is raising $450,000 to complete phase II of its New Hope Ranch in Cedar Park. Staff members from O'Connell Robertson volunteered their time to design the site and building, and the firm donated the plans. Other firms donating their services include: Joe Bland Construction, Legacy Lighting, ForeverLawn Austin, Big Red Dog Engineering, Land Interactive, APAC Texas, Austin Bridge and Road and more than 60 other local businesses.
About the Meadows Foundation
Since its inception, The Meadows Foundation has disbursed in excess of $760 million in grants and direct charitable expenditures of over 3,000 Texas institutions and agencies. Grants have been awarded in both large urban areas and small rural communities and in every Texas county. The Foundation looks for programs and services that employ imaginative ways to solve community problems through projects leading to organizational self-sufficiency and in capital plans that enable agencies to flourish.
Media Contact:
Debi Krakar
Executive Director, Austin Dog Alliance
1321 West New Hope Drive
Cedar Park, Texas 78613
512.335.7100
Cell: 512.576.8300
Email: debi@austindogalliance.org