Message From The Executive Director
Dear friends:
It’s my pleasure to welcome you to Guide Dogs of the Desert, where we create and celebrate the partnership between a blind person and a trained guide dog.
For the blind, a guide dog means increased freedom, companionship and safety. Since 1972, Guide Dogs of the Desert has worked to connect people in need with the tools they require for success. From a simple ranch house in the desert, where originally one client and one dog were trained together, Guide Dogs of the Desert has grown to house and train up to 30 clients and specially trained guide dogs each year at our campus outside Palm Springs, California. We’ve graduated more than 1,200 client/dog teams in our forty years of service.
This school was built on the premise that every legally blind person should have the opportunity to have a guide dog, even if they have multiple disabilities. Because of this commitment to our special clients, we keep our class sizes small and focus on the individual needs of our clients.
Guide Dogs of the Desert’s program includes breeding, puppy raising, formal training for the dogs, on-campus training for our clients and their dogs, and post graduate support. All of our services are provided free of charge to our blind clients; we would not be able to continue providing the unique gifts that a trained guide dog brings to the blind without the support of our many friends and donors around the world like you.
As we enter our fourth decade of service, Guide Dogs of the Desert continues to seek new ways to help those without sight: we are planning a mother and baby class, so new moms can learn to work with their guide dog and their child together, and we work with veterans to increase their mobility and independence after they have served our country. Our desert campus has expanded to include a Health and Wellness Center for our dogs in the kennel and puppies in training, and we recently opened the Guide Dog Depot in downtown Palm Springs, where visitors can shop and learn about our programs.
Celebrate forty years of service with us! As we grow to serve more people, we hope you will join our family and share in the life-changing work we do for the blind. Call us to arrange a tour of our campus, sign up for our newsletter -- join us as we continue our legacy of commitment to the partnership between guide dogs and the blind.
Sincerely,
Roccie Hill
Executive Director
