Donna Hailson
Hand in Paw: HIP Healing and Art-Making
In this episode Donna visits with Kitty Terry, Executive Director of the internationally-known, Birmingham, Alabama-based animal-assisted therapy organization, Hand in Paw. HIP, founded in 1996, provides professionally trained animal-assisted therapy teams to help people heal physically and emotionally. These 120+ teams (which are made up entirely of volunteers) address abuse, disabilities, illiteracy, and chronic and terminal illness, through more than 50,000 visits a year in more than 50 facilities in the state of Alabama. Questions or Comments? Send them to: donna@petliferadio.com. Also, check out the On The Road with Mac & Molly BLOG!
Kitty, sharing from a heart of great passion for the work, shares stories of wonderful successes through each of HIP’s programs: PETSCRIPTION, SIT, STAY, READ!, and PAWSITIVE LIVING™. Sit, Stay, Read helps reluctant young readers who are performing below grade level to overcome embarrassment and improve skills by reading to non-judgmental, calming therapy animals. Through Petscription, a therapy animal is employed to calm patients as they approach invasive or ordinarily stress-producing procedures. Pawsitive Living, an innovative 12-week program teaches compassion and anger management to at-risk children and youth.
In this program, as well, we hear about the wonderfully innovative Picasso Pets, HIP’s signature event and fundraiser. For this, a family’s or individual’s pet (a dog, a cat, a bird, a pig, a horse, whatever furry, feathery creature it is they love) is paired up with a professional artist (the pet’s “muse”) to create a masterpiece. The human artist helps the animal artist use its feet and/or tail to paint across a canvas. Sometimes, a nose is employed as a stamp. Each canvas is then stretched, the human artist puts on the finishing touches, and, there you have it, a unique piece of artwork created with the love of and for an animal. This artwork is then auctioned off in conjunction with other large auction items, and is accompanied by a silent auction. All the proceeds from each year’s event is poured back into addressing the organization’s mission of helping people heal..
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