Hi Rachel, Ronnie here from Riverside.
I have nominated Mark Eberle,
he's the founder of Paws Healing Heroes,
to be on your show because he has a heart of gold.
He actually started out needing a service dog for himself.
Going through the process of trying to get himself a dog,
he realized how much money it was gonna cost
and waiting for funding just took too long,
so he ended up going out, doing fundraisers
to buy himself his own service dog.
He ended up giving that service dog to another veteran
he felt needed the dog more,
and it just kinda spiraled into Paws Healing Heroes.
We rescue dogs, and we give them to veterans.
No veteran has to pay for anything.
We supply the training, the certificates.
They don't have to worry about anything.
They have this fully-trained dog,
and the only thing that they have to worry about
is bonding and loving each other,
and Moonshine apparently wants all of the camera right now.
We're trying desperately to build a facility
that we can house our training dogs in
and also have somewhere that our veterans can go
to do some training with these dogs.
He's helped over 20 something veterans.
Not only are we helping veterans,
we're also saving the lives of dogs in shelters too
and giving them a purpose.
This is why I wanted to nominate him.
He deserves to be recognized.
He deserves for people to know how awesome he is
and the good that he's doing.
(audience applauds)
Just to be clear, each animal, each service animal,
is a cost of about $5,000, (audience gasps)
and he's done this for 24 other vets.
(audience applauds)
Raised money to provide 24 vets with $5,000 each,
but something that is truly priceless,
the companionship and the love of an animal.
Don't you think animals make humans better humans?
Absolutely, when we rescue 'em from the shelters,
they just seem to want to help more than
Yeah Just going out and buying
It's amazing A dog from anybody you know.
Isn't it amazing?
Absolutely
So the reason you're here is because it's our 13th season,
and I'm very superstitious,
and we wanted to make 13 lucky instead of unlucky,
so we're celebrating 13 people that we think
are amazing real life heroes,
and you're one of our lucky 13.
(audience cheers and applauds)
So, the luck is going to begin with Ronnie,
who's here and wants to come out and share her love,
come on out Ronnie.
(audience applauds)
Ronnie, look what you did!
Surprise
She's gotta ride home with me.
So, a little weird, right? Yes
Okay, we're gonna make it even weirder.
Who's coming, there are a few more people
who want to honor you, come on out guys.
So here are (audience applauds)
Please welcome, veterans Corporal James Graham and Cooper,
Chief Todd Harris and Nikki,
Corporal Bruce Stewart and his dog Paulie,
Specialist Mike DeKnight his dog Ghost,
and Sergeant Brandon Richardson and his dog Zeus.
Oh, you guys are (mumbles).
(audience applauds)
You guys are gonna get it.
Collectively, with the people that you've helped here
and that aren't able to be here today,
we want you to know how important you are to us
and what you've done to change our lives.
You've given us all back a piece of us
that we thought was gone forever,
and personally I know you've saved my life more than once,
and I really appreciate that man.
Ten Hut! (salutes Mark)
(audience cheers and applauds)
How's that feel huh?
I'm blown away Isn't it
great to have all that love and positive energy?
When we first started, we wanted to make sure
that we tried to rescue dogs before we went anywhere else.
Just because you have a broken dog and a broken vet
and two broken pieces make a whole one.
Well, he is literally doing God's work.
I just don't know what to say
except we want to help you expand,
and I heard that the expansion costs
$7,000 for the expansion, so that's the goal,
so we wanted to help you reach your goal.
So our friends at Petmate have covered it completely.
They're giving you the 7,000.
(audience cheers and applauds)
So that's done.
They're also, just for fun, gonna throw in
100 collars and leashes for the future shelter
so that they can get their dogs all trained.
(audience applauds)
I, of course, we make Nutrish for dogs and cats
and thanks to Nutrish, we have given over $30 million
in non-kill shelter relief.
(audience cheers)
So we will be sponsoring your shelter for a year
with anything and everything that you need
as far as food and treats for training.
(audience cheers)