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An Assistance Dog for Tom

  • Big Big News!

      9 February 2016

    Another MASSIVE thank you to all our supporters, the wait is over! 5 days ago our beautiful dog arrived and she's already changed our lives! Here is a photo of Tom, a few minutes after he first met Libby outside of school and was scared to go near her, within a few minutes he was happily walking alongside her. And look - notice no hands on Tom! Such a different experience for us as parents to have our little boy walk safely along side us. We can stop next to our car and load up bags etc and have Tom perfectly safe tethered to Libby. We are on a massive learning curve and have a trainer with us for the next few weeks but we just wanted to give you all this exciting update - we are such a happy family and feel like our dreams really have come true - life is changing!

    Remember if you'd like to continue following our journey please 'like' our facebook page, An Assistance Dog for Tom. Thank you again for being part of our journey x

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  • Big Big News!

      9 February 2016

    Another MASSIVE thank you to all our supporters, the wait is over! 5 days ago our beautiful dog arrived and she's already changed our lives! Here is a photo of Tom, a few minutes after he first met Libby outside of school and was scared to go near her, within a few minutes he was happily walking alongside her. And look - notice no hands on Tom! Such a different experience for us as parents to have our little boy walk safely along side us. We can stop next to our car and load up bags etc and have Tom perfectly safe tethered to Libby. We are on a massive learning curve and have a trainer with us for the next few weeks but we just wanted to give you all this exciting update - we are such a happy family and feel like our dreams really have come true - life is changing!

    Remember if you'd like to continue following our journey please 'like' our facebook page, An Assistance Dog for Tom. Thank you again for being part of our journey x

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  • ZB & ASB "Good as Gold" Winner!

      27 October 2015
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    For those who may not have heard, we were contacted by ZB after the lovely Kathy nominated Tom for the Good as Gold competition - he won! They gave us $1,500 towards Tom's Assistance Dog and $500 to Tom's Grandma towards petrol that she chews up running round after her grandchildren. We were blown away by the announcement - if you missed hearing the audio you can hear it on our Assistance Dog for Tom facebook page.

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  • Lots going on!

      29 September 2015
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    We had our Ladies Night fundraiser last week, was fabulous to see 90+ ladies in one room, all there to support our wonderful Tom. We were very fortunate to have Tracy from Assistance Dogs New Zealand join us on the night and do a demonstration with the beautiful Lacey who's soon off to begin her career as an assistance dog. Was a beautiful reminder of just how magical these dogs are. We don't have a final total yet from the evening.

    We have also had amazing support from the Orewa Bridge Club who held a fundraising afternoon on Tom's behalf and raised over $1400! Incredible and we are so grateful. Have attached a new photo of Tom taken by big sister Ella.

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  • Hurry up Summer!

      9 September 2015
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    It's been a while between updates - we've had a housefull of sick children! Thankfully all within the realms of normal winter bugs, although Tom did scare us with his high temperatures and was unable to use his legs for two days, he just stopped walking! Was quite frightening, and always even more so when he has no way of communicating to us what is wrong, what is hurting. Thankfully we are through it now though and he's very happy to be back at school this week.

    We have some amazing support lately, through this wonderful Give a Little site, through local groups sharing and donating, it's been amazing.

    We are very fortunate to have a very talented school mum who has volunteered her time to put on a Ladies Night fundraising event. Please see our Facebook page for details - it's only $25 per ticket so if you are in Auckland please consider coming along, we'd love to see you and there are some amazing prizes to be won.

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  • Thank you

      3 August 2015
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    Just wanted to share an update from our weekend, we joined the Assistance Dogs Charity Walk and got to lead one of the assistance dogs in training - Lexis. Lexis is the sister of Libby who we hope will be our dog. Tom had a wonderful time, he's quite nervous around dogs but as this photo shows he is more comfortable when their faces are not near him, and he slowly got closer and started stroking Lexis. It was beautiful to see. After a fabulous day out around the dogs we called in to Albany Mall on the way home to get sports shoes for Jacob, our 9 year old, it turned into a disaster of an outing with a massive meltdown from Tom. If only we'd had our beautiful dog with us it would have been so much nicer for him. He was distraught and trying to run away and just inconsolable, I picture him being attached to his dog in situations like this and we can just sit wherever we are and calm down, instead of trying to stop Tom while he's mid meltdown. Some days are hard - but most days are awesome x

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  • We are half way!

      30 July 2015
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    Very exciting to see our total hit $10,000 today - officially half way! Thank you so much to all the beautiful donors who have helped this day arrive, and to all of you who have shared our story.

    A new photo for you - Tom at the park with his brother and sister, it was the first outing we've had that just felt like 3 kids playing together, no one particularly having to help Tom - he's a very capable climber! Of course Mum and Dad were both on runaway look out duty :-)

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  • Our first fundraising event!

      17 July 2015
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    Today we held our first fundraising bbq with sausages, bacon sandwiches, drinks, raffles, lolly bags and wheat bags hand made by our beautiful daughter. It was a true family event with Grandma on board too and 'Uncle Darren' from Australia helping on the bbq. Our Jacob who is 9 was very brave and walked around handing out flyers and inviting people to come along. Our amazing community were so supportive and we finished the day with...........wait for it........$1,330.70!!!!!!!! So very exciting, thank you so much to the friends who came along, to the people who gave us donations, to the people who bought items from us.... you are amazing.

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  • Wow - we've cracked $4,000!

      16 July 2015

    Big week for fundraising, our beautiful daughter Ella, and Tom's lovely Grandmother spoke in front of a crowd for us, and tomorrow we have our first fundraising BBQ, a true family affair with so much planning and love that has gone into it. Thank you to all our donors for the incredible success we've had so far, it's all really very exciting!

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  • The kindness of 'strangers'

      13 July 2015
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    ....it's so beautiful how Tom's story is being read by people who have never met him but can see the 'light' in him.. he's such a precious boy with siblings who care so much for him.. he's going places this boy and every single person who has donated is making a difference to his life.. thank you so much! Here's another photo of our little star.. enjoying a Thomas story, we are very lucky that Tom seems to get a lot of pleasure out of quiet activities like reading... but that is certainly not to say he's always quiet as some of you will know!!!

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  • Unbelievably we have hit $3,000!

      6 July 2015
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    We are so very excited today! Have you all seen our total growing so beautifully? We are becoming a little bit speechless to be honest.. .to know Tom's story is touching so many people makes us very happy. He's an amazing little boy (we are not biased!!) and this freedom he's soon to experience is going to be so incredible for him. All we can really say to everyone is thank you.. and please know we mean it from our hearts x

    PS - nothing confirmed but there is a wee chance that this might end up being our dog. Isn't she beautiful?

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  • Woohoo - we have our first $1,000!!!

      27 June 2015
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    Thank you our amazing sponsors who have helped us reach our first milestone. It's been so beautiful to see how much people really do care, it's so lovely and it's heartwarming xxxx Thank you thank you thank you...

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  • We are underway!

      17 June 2015
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    Thank you everyone for making our first day of fundraising go so well, I feel like we haven't stopped smiling since the page went up! It was so lovely updating Ella and Jacob and seeing their 'awe' at how amazingly kind people are being. Thank you thank you thank you everyone. We will keep you posted on our journey x

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