Roxy Responders First Call To Duty
Roxy™ Responders were recently called into action to comfort grieving students and faculty in the Quakertown Community School District. There was a tragic fire in Quakertown over the holiday weekend. The King family lost their father, Eric, two young sons, 8 year old Patrick and 11 year old Liam, and their two dogs. Their mother, Kristin, and older brother, Brady, survived.
The Roxy organization is saddened by this horrific event and deeply honored that QCSD invited us into their schools to offer comfort and support to their students and faculty. Our teams were available on-site for three days to help with the healing process at Richland Elementary School and Strayer Middle School.
As you can see below, feedback from Bucks IU (Bucks County Intermediate Unit), the event facilitator, was kind and appreciative, giving hope and renewed purpose to the Roxy Responders team.
“I’ve been bragging non stop about the impact your dogs had on the kids, the staff, and the entire school community during this difficult time! This experience has given us an understanding of the incredible impact dogs can have on our students and staff and their well being. The dogs being present added a type of calm to our entire school community.
Thanks again so very much!”
All of the Roxy Responders who visited were extremely compassionate and grateful for the opportunity to serve this community. As you can see below, their own words speak volumes on the importance of our mission to comfort and support children who are affected by traumatic events.
We hope that there are few traumatic events in our future but we know that when they happen, our Roxy Responders will be up to the task!
Murphy Loeffler
“What an experience it was today at Richland Elementary seeing the positive effect of the dogs with the kids and the teachers. The conversations with the kids were so heart touching...The frowns that came in the door and turned into smiles were priceless...Thank you, everyone. The kindness is beyond words.”
“We went to Strayer...When we entered and met up with the counselor, she was with a 14 year old boy who was crying. We asked if he’d like to pet Oliver and it ended up that she thought it’d be a good idea for him to spend the hour with me walking around the school. He took on the role of my assistant which he loved by telling the students he likes to be petted under his chin, they can take pictures with him, and then he’d tell me it’s time to move on to the next classroom. When it was time to leave, he was laughing and talking, didn’t want us to leave and asked for us to come back for him. I never asked why are you crying, did you know the 8th grader who survived the fire, NO, this hour was for him to be with a therapy dog to forget his sorrows.”
Oliver Pearson
Mac Dey
“I definitely think the COE course material was helpful in preparing me for our visit to Richland...The webcast on dog body language was helpful as well...I’m glad we were able to put some smiles on both the students and teachers’ faces.
Don’t know if there are any plans for future visits, but if so, count Mac and me in!”
“Sadie and I had our visit at Strayer...It was wonderful, the kids said she was a celebrity with all the selfies they took with her and truly seemed to benefit from the break/distraction in their school day. Of course, Sadie benefited as well with an hour+ of massages.”
Sadie Elrod
Bentley Friter
“Bentley and I had a wonderful, touching experience at Richland...
It was a warm and meaningful experience for all!”
“Cooper and I were at Strayer Middle School and the response we received was so heartwarming. The smiles on the children’s faces when petting him said it all! This was a great introduction to a dog therapy program that the counselors and staff are eager to get started.”
Cooper Snyder
To summarize...the response from all of you was terrific! We were able, in a short amount of time, to put together teams to cover both the elementary school and middle school. All feedback I received from school administrators, counselors, and teachers was overwhelming.
- ANDREA DADIGAN, DIRECTOR OF ROXY RESPONDERS