August Chamber Breakfast Addresses Vital Veteran Resource and Student Access to Education

The Greater Hernando County Chamber of Commerce held their monthly breakfast meeting on the last Wednesday of August. The morning’s spread was sponsored by K9 Partners for Patriots (K9P4P) before a brief presentation by guest speaker Chuck Tiernan, Senior Director of Community Impact at Community Foundation Tampa Bay (CFTB).

K9P4P Executive Director of Training Operations Mary Peter founded K9 Partners for Patriots in 2014. She is a Certified Master Dog Trainer (CMDT) and has trained dogs professionally for over 35 years. While operating her former for-profit dog training business, Stillwater Dog Training, Ms. Peter “saw a great need” for such a service. So, she shut down that venture and started up the non-profit “to give our military a chance to thrive,” the Executive Director said. She has an overflowing passion for what she does and has been looking forward to speaking at a chamber breakfast for a long time.

The organization is committed “to preventing veteran suicide and fostering hope for those battling PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury, and MST (Military Sexual Trauma),” noted the group’s mission statement. “Through the unique bond formed while training their service dogs, we guide veterans from self-doubt to renewed confidence, promoting mental wellness through in-house counseling and reconnection in a supportive community.”

Their six-month dog training program is valued at roughly $21,000 each, but this service is free for veterans. With 22 veterans committing suicide a day, Peter and company are working hard to help military members transition into civilian life as smoothly as possible. K9 Partners for Patriots has rescued 265 dogs, graduated 445 dog teams, and has 765 active program veterans.

They rescue dogs for their programs because they “want to help save two lives,” stated Ms. Peter. Due to the prohibitive cost of shepherding this program and the growing demand among veterans, K9P4P would appreciate monetary support through a one-time donation or through their Vanguard Companions monthly giving program. For citizens looking to learn more, the Sun covered the organization in more depth in June and its website is k9partnersforpatriots.com.

Next, it was time for CFTB’s Tiernan, who is also the Director of the LEAP Tampa Bay Local College Access Network (LCAN), to present the main course. LEAP is one such network that helps connect citizens who wish to take their education further to training opportunities. Through his foundation and various LCANs, Tiernan looks to enact a plan to remove the roadblocks for potential students moving forward.

His goal is to have two-thirds of community members obtain some sort of workforce credential or degree by 2034. That percentage currently sits around 40 percent. The Pinellas and Hillsborough branches of LEAP took on such an initiative with a target of 60 percent by 2025 and have been increasing their numbers by at least a percent and a half year-on-year. Tiernan believes that they will reach the threshold in time.

To make sure everyone is in lockstep to make this happen, Tiernan and the CFTB use the Stanford Collective Impact Model. According to the senior director, collective impact is “making sure that the relationships you have build trust. You have just enough rules of engagement to know how are we going to interact here, but we’re not going to hold each other back either.” The five pillars of the model are:

• Common Agenda: “What would be a North Star that we could all be moving toward?”
• Backbone Support
• Mutually Reinforcing Activities
• Shared Measurement
• Constant Communication

“You have to love helping people,” Tiernan said of his profession. “Most people that are in non-profit roles and those kinds of things… their heart is definitely in it.”

Having come from a low-income household, Tiernan was the first in his family to graduate. The information surrounding financial aid and other such information was not easily accessible for someone in his situation. This fuels his passion for students’ access to college in the modern day. The director feels education “opens up doors.” After advancing past those barriers to entry, he benefited greatly.

Tiernan’s foundation offers one competitive grant a year and he encourages people to go to Cftampabay.org and click on grants to learn more. If you are a prospective college student, getting involved in an LCAN such as LEAP or SPARK could be a great way to help break down the barriers to higher education.