Friends - I am so excited to be running the Los Angeles Charity 1/2 Marathon and raising funds with team K9 Youth Alliance March 19!

Please support my page - any donation helps me get to my goal to raise $3000 for underserved kids and homeless dogs! If a donation is tough, your help to amplify our message and share it with your friends and family goes a long way.

But I'd also really like you to pause and hear the story how K9 first came to be, and why it is so special to me.

New to Los Angeles and fresh out of college, I began working with kids in residential treatment. It was entry level grunt work, we were boots on the ground. And I was woefully underprepared to support youth experiencing so much trauma.

Witnessing kids who were bounced around the system, who were struggling to get by without supportive families - I was struck by their will to overcome. Their sheer tenacity and daily struggle that continued despite the lack of help they received from the system that was supposed to be supporting them.

Most had never had the opportunity to engage with a companion animal in any meaningful way. They were living in an environment where showing emotion and being vulnerable felt dangerous. Growing up with not just dogs but cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, goats, horses and even turkeys - I turned to our pets for comfort when I was hurting - a wagging tail, a deep purr, a nose nestling into my open hand.

While volunteering in animal shelters, I also witnessed dogs who came from backgrounds of trauma, who bounced around, had no family and may have been abused. Dogs who despite their drive to overcome their circumstances, sat in bare kennels alone most days, who deteriorated behaviorally and who were not empowered to thrive by the system there to protect them.

The parallels were striking.

What if kids from under-resourced communities and homeless dogs could come together to share meaningful, empowering experiences? How could that inspire growth and change lives?

Luckily, others believed in the healing potential of the human-animal connection, we rolled up our sleeves and K9 Youth Alliance became a thing.

The journey has been an incredible one, and I am awed by the kids, the dogs and the people who have come together in support growth, of overcoming obstacles, of creating a better life.  Thank you, for reading our story and I hope that you too are inspired to take action and make a positive change in your community.