38 min
Kyria Whisenhunt - Paws4People - How can service dogs educate, empower, and transform lives? The Misfit Heroes Podcast
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- Non-Profit
Kyria Whisenhunt is the executive director of Paws4People, a North Carolina based nonprofit that aims to educate and empower people through the use of assistance dogs to transform people's lives.
The nonprofit was formed in 1999, when Kyria was just 12 years old, with the purpose of using dogs to help people.
Over the last 22 years, the organization has helped veterans, people with disabilities, and children and adolescents with physical, neurological, psychiatric, and/or emotional disabilities in 22 states, with placement nationwide.
Kyria was a 2010 Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year finalist; the winner of the 2011 IKEA Life Improvement contest; the winner of WILMA Magazine’s Women to Watch in 2014; the National Points of Light award in 2015; and the 2017 Coastal Entrepreneur Award – Non-profit in 2017. Kyria was also a finalist for the YWCA Women of Achievement in the Non-Profit category in 2021.
Kyria serves as Executive Director of paws4people. She is the Program Director and Instructor of the University of North Carolina Wilmington Assistance Dog Training Minor, the first and only comprehensive Assistance Dog academic certificate program at a state university. She has also served as an adjunct faculty member of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry.
We discuss how she started the organization at just 12 years old, the surprising training program she coordinated using prison inmates to train support animals, the difference between a service dog and emotional support animal, and the use cases for service dogs you may not have known about.
Paws4People can be found online at www.paws4people.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paws4people
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paws4people
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paws4people/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/p4pfoundation
Thanks for listening to the Misfit Heroes Podcast. More information can be found on our website at www.misfit-heroes.com and www.beacons.ai/misfitheroes
Kyria Whisenhunt is the executive director of Paws4People, a North Carolina based nonprofit that aims to educate and empower people through the use of assistance dogs to transform people's lives.
The nonprofit was formed in 1999, when Kyria was just 12 years old, with the purpose of using dogs to help people.
Over the last 22 years, the organization has helped veterans, people with disabilities, and children and adolescents with physical, neurological, psychiatric, and/or emotional disabilities in 22 states, with placement nationwide.
Kyria was a 2010 Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year finalist; the winner of the 2011 IKEA Life Improvement contest; the winner of WILMA Magazine’s Women to Watch in 2014; the National Points of Light award in 2015; and the 2017 Coastal Entrepreneur Award – Non-profit in 2017. Kyria was also a finalist for the YWCA Women of Achievement in the Non-Profit category in 2021.
Kyria serves as Executive Director of paws4people. She is the Program Director and Instructor of the University of North Carolina Wilmington Assistance Dog Training Minor, the first and only comprehensive Assistance Dog academic certificate program at a state university. She has also served as an adjunct faculty member of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry.
We discuss how she started the organization at just 12 years old, the surprising training program she coordinated using prison inmates to train support animals, the difference between a service dog and emotional support animal, and the use cases for service dogs you may not have known about.
Paws4People can be found online at www.paws4people.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paws4people
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paws4people
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paws4people/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/p4pfoundation
Thanks for listening to the Misfit Heroes Podcast. More information can be found on our website at www.misfit-heroes.com and www.beacons.ai/misfitheroes
38 min