Local K9 crisis team helps comfort Buffalo community shaken by supermarket shooting
CHERRY HILL, N.J. - A very special group of volunteers just got back to South Jersey after helping those deeply impacted in Buffalo. It was a 400-mile mission they didn’t want to take, but a grieving Buffalo community got a little bit of help and a lot of heart from the group.
Members of Cherry Hill’s Tri-State Canine Response Team reflect on a tough and emotional week in Buffalo.
Five teams of trained emotional support dogs and counselors spent the week meeting with victims, first responders and 911 dispatchers after last week’s mass shooting.
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"Three of the children we worked with yesterday, one of them lost a parent during the shooting and two of them were in the store when it happened," Counselor Marge Inscho said.
For dogs like Logan, love and support is nothing new. These hero dogs comforted thousands locally over the years, in hospitals to schools and mass shootings, from Florida to Las Vegas.
Cherry Hill’s Tri-State Canine Response Team.
"This is, actually, our 11th deployment and, we’d like to say it would be our last. Unfortunately, we know it probably will not be," President of Tri-State Canine Response Janice Campbell commented.
The counselors themselves will go through debriefing with their own mental health professionals. A GoFundMe site is set up to help Tri-State Canine Response continue their mission.