This past Sunday, CCI was very honored to be the beneficiary of Daniel's Charity Baseball Game! The background story? Daniel wanted to help out other people and decided to host a charity baseball game every year. Each year he would choose a charity and donate all the proceeds from the game to that organization. This year he chose CCI to be the beneficiary!Thanks to our NJ Chapter Public Relations Chair, Jen, for getting us all involved. I believe that she knew the family when she was raising Callie and that's how they learned about CCI in the first place. The game was a "pickup" baseball game between the 11th graders at Daniel's school and the Westfield Police Department. It was a ton of fun and you could see that everyone was having a good time as well. They had set up some tables which they put auction items on. You could buy a ticket to place in the bags to put in your "bid". Then at the end of the event, Daniel went around picking out numbers and handing out the prizes. It was very well done! The dogs had a lot of fun meeting everyone and everyone had fun meeting the pups! Thank you again Daniel for choosing CCI and for inviting us to be there! It was a great event and we had a lot of fun!
CCI has launched a nation-wide Wounded Veteran's Initiative where they are trying to unite many wounded vets with Service Dogs. The NER recently graduated their first Veteran with SD Gillian. It's a fascinating story from the PR to the day of graduation.
Gillian's PR was a young girl who was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of 10. She applied for a wish from the Make A Wish Foundation. Her wish was to raise a Service Dog, and her wish was granted. She received Gillian and it was great to see that Gillian graduated!
Gillian has helped out her new partner, Sergeant Sam Cila, and he was recently interviewed about CCI, You can read the interview here.
Congratulations to Canine Companions for Independence on the release and start of their new blog! http://blog.cci.org/ is now up and running. They will be updating it with things that are going on across the country. This is a great new step in the direction of new media. Blogging is the big thing today and I know that they learned a lot at BlogPaws this past weekend.
Good job guys!!
The link will be in my links section so that anyone can go view it when they want to know what CCI is up to!
Awesome day! Today we had a CCI event at the US Open in Flushing, Queens, NY. Let's just say this....it was incredible!
We left the house today around 9 am and arrived at Flushing Meadows Corona Park around 10:30 am. None of the events started until 11 so we wandered around outside all of the stadiums. Our tickets didn't get us into Arthur Ashe Stadium where the big players were competing, but we had access to all the other courts. We took some pictures once we walked in:I should have known how the day would go when one of the women working the event stood by Bright as we were waiting for the humans to take "hurry" breaks so that she could make sure that no one stepped on her tail!
We then made our way over to Court 11 where the wheelchair tennis was being played. I don't know how many people have seen this being played, but let me tell you...these guys are amazing. One of the guys had his racket strapped around his wrist with a bungee band thingy. The other guy actually had his racket taped to his hand! They were moving all over the court and moving so much faster than I can even run. They put my tennis skills to shame!
Around 12:00 we headed over to the South Gate where there is a really nice fountain. Here we gathered to do a photo shoot. One of our PRs is a professional photographer and Jen has been working the US Open so she knows a LOT of the press people there. It was awesome! I don't know where the photos will show up, but it was really neat anyways! We also had a great time socializing the puppies. As usual, we drew quite a crowd! Then it was a quick "hurry" break out of the complex and Bright and I had fun and took a picture with the globe and fountain behind her. So neat! We then headed over to the Louis Armstrong Stadium to see the #1 ranked woman in the world in wheelchair tennis, Esther Vergeer. She's incredible! Her opponent, Florence Alix-Gravellier, gave her a lot of competition, but ended up losing to her in 2 sets, both 7-5. These women were amazing and wheelchair tennis is so neat to watch. After they serve the ball they usually spin their chairs around so that they can get in position to return the ball. I was able to get a bit of video from the match. Just watch how Vergeer moves around the court.
Like I said....amazing!
With wheelchair tennis, the players are given an extra bounce. Instead of having only one bounce's time to get to the ball, the rules are made so that the ball can bounce one more time. This makes sense since they don't have the same movement available to them like able-bodied athletes do. I thought it was a neat little difference and most of the time the athletes didn't need to take the extra bounce, they were just that fast getting to the ball!
While we were sitting and watching the match, we saw that we were being filmed by a cameraman! I think Jen was friends with this guy also and he definitely got a lot of footage of the pups playing with all of us and also enjoying the match. We left quickly because we were made aware that Anna Kournikova was there doing a photo shoot and autograph session. So we quickly bought a tennis ball and patiently waited in line to meet Anna. The whole time we were being followed around by the cameraman! It felt like we were all celebrities and were in the middle of filming a reality tv show. So cool!
Anna Kournikova was extremely nice and she loves dogs! I think she wanted to take a few of the pups home with her... In talking to Jen, she said that they were going to do some kind of special or something with the footage that was shot of the pups during the day. Now that would be nice! The cameraman said that he got a lot of great video. Way to go guys!
After that it was time to go...it was already 6pm! As we were headed out we saw a HUGE tennis ball and, of course, the pups had to play with it! It was hilarious watching them jump around the ball. They all wanted to play! As we were walking out, they had a bunch of workers lined up saying goodbye to people as they left the complex. Well, we knew that we wouldn't be able to just simply walk by, not with the pups around! So another photo opportunity presented itself and the pups performed as usual!
Once we left the complex I wanted to make a quick side trip to Citi Field (home of the New York Mets) which was just across the street. When I was there back in June (as a birthday gift from my parents!) I didn't get a picture in front of the famous Home Run Apple. Debbie and Mina came along as well and we had fun taking some pictures! Now we are home and resting. Bright immediately passed out and doesn't seem like she wants to do much right now! So I am curled up on the couch and writing this while watching the first football game of the season. Can it get any better than this?
Hope you all enjoy the pictures. It was a super fun day and I hope we can repeat the experience next year!!!
Ok so I think that my blogger account might actually want to be nice to me today and allow me to upload some fun pictures from Disney. Have a fun day today everyone and enjoy the pictures!
At the entrance to the Magic Kingdom!
Bright and Orson. Love how the guy behind them is smiling for the picture too!
We met Princess Aurora! She's my favorite Disney Character. I think Bright liked her too!
Hats anyone?
Hanging out under the big Mickey Sorcerer Hat in the middle of Disney's Hollywood Studios! (It will forever be MGM Studios to me!) Bright's first Monorail ride!
Grabbed a bus from the Transportation & Ticket Center headed to the Animal Kingdom!
Animal Kingdom! Bright really liked the ducks here....
LegoLand in Downtown Disney. She thought the dogs were real!
Perfect spot for the Electric Light Parade and fireworks in the Magic Kingdom.
Is it starting yet??
Disney was sooo much fun and these pictures aren't even a full representation of what we did. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!
Sorry sorry sorry!! I'm just awful at keeping up with this blog over the past few months. I really am sorry that I haven't been around to post. There really isn't any good excuse except that I have been keeping extremely busy.
Bright had a blast at Disney World and didn't want to leave to come home! We did an awful lot of stuff and we thank Team Orson for inviting us along for the trip! Without them we would not have thought to go down to Disney World and would have missed out on a great time! Thanks guys!
The next few weeks will be jam packed full of CCI events and I will be on the move yet again. This Thursday we are headed to the US Open out on Long Island for wheelchair tennis! CCI NER has put together an opportunity for CCI volunteers, PRS, and staff to go to the US Open and enjoy some great tennis! This should be so cool and I know that Bright is going to have a lot of fun. I will be taking a lot of pictures and I hope to get a post up about that too.
Then this coming weekend we have the start of the street fairs! On Saturday we will be in Cranbury for "Cranbury Day" and then on Sunday we will be at the Red Bank Street Fair. Lots to do! If you're in the area, stop on by!
Thanks to our NJ Chapter Public Relations Chair, Jen, for getting us all involved. I believe that she knew the family when she was raising Callie and that's how they learned about CCI in the first place. The game was a "pickup" baseball game between the 11th graders at Daniel's school and the Westfield Police Department. It was a ton of fun and you could see that everyone was having a good time as well.
The dogs had a lot of fun meeting everyone and everyone had fun meeting the pups!
