When This Veteran Needed Help Paying for His Dog’s Service Training, This Young Girl Opened a Lemonade Stand

After two tours in Iraq and close calls during mortar attacks that left Nicholas Bailey with PTSD, a spinal injury and severe pain, only one thing helped the Army veteran: support from his German Shepherd, Abel.
His wife, Vanessa, tells DaShawn Brown of WCSC, “In the middle of the night when Nick is having a nightmare, he wakes Nick up by licking his hand.”
“It’s like he could feel the pain coming from Nick,” says Vanessa.
Because of this intense bond, the Baileys, of North Charleston, S.C., decided they wanted to train Abel as a service animal instead of applying to receive a new dog trained to help with PTSD. They started training Abel on their own, but once, when they were shopping, a box fell from a shelf and hit Abel, startling him and leaving him hesitant to enter stores — the exact places where Nicholas relied on him to calm his PTSD symptoms.
As a result, the Baileys investigated how to get Abel professional training in Arizona at a facility that can teach the German Shepherd to overcome his fear and complete his service dog lessons.
The only problem? The training (plus kenneling, medications, and food) costs $15,000. (A more affordable training program that the Baileys originally looked into didn’t work out.)
The Baileys set up a GoFundMe account explaining Nick’s condition and that going out in public can be a “nightmare” without the help of Abel.
All of this led to an 8-year-old girl the Baileys had never met, Rachel Mennett, learning of their plight and asking a pet shop in Summerville, S.C. if she could set up a lemonade stand to raise money for Abel’s training.
“I wanted to help him because my brother knew he needed help, and I wanted to do lemonade so I thought I could help him do it,” she tells Brown. The donations flowed in, many people giving money without even accepting a cup of lemonade.
“For me, it’s just amazing that an 8-year-old girl would show any interest in me or my dog,” Nicholas says.
As for that GoFundMe account? After the story about Rachel’s lemonade stand aired, many more people chipped in, and now the Baileys are just a couple of thousands of dollars shy of their goal.
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The Surprisingly Simple Actions Helping Veterans Visit the Memorials That Honor Their Service

Collecting cans and recycling them for cash can yield a person quite a large amount of money. For one man, however, this bounty doesn’t go into his pocket; it goes towards helping out veterans.
Each week, Warren Vincent of Hutchinson, Kan. straps a towering pile of garbage bags bulging with cans to the back of his pickup with an elaborate web of bungees and cables and drives them to Midwest Iron and Metal Inc., where he usually receives a couple hundred dollars.
Every cent Vincent raises from his can-hauling missions goes to his program Cans 4 Kansas Honor Flights, which helps fund Kansas Honor Flight, an organization that flies veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to Washington D.C. to visit war memorials.
Each vet’s trip costs $700, and Vincent keeps that amount in mind as he travels around the town collecting cans wherever he sees them and picking them up from two drop-off stations he’s set up in McPherson County, Kan., including one at the NCRA Refinery, where employees have been especially generous with their leftover soda cans.
Since May 2013, he’s raised nearly $10,000 — enough to send 14 veterans on an unforgettable trip.
Vincent told Katy Hanks of the Hutchinson News as he drove her in his can-crammed truck that he could haul even more if he had a trailer. Later that day, some good news came through. “The workers at NCRA are going to buy me a trailer,” Vincent tells Hanks. “That’s the best news of the entire four years I have been doing this.”
Vincent’s efforts to help veterans are remarkable, and he’s not the only Kansan providing assistance to our former service members. According to Hanks, there’s a group of youngsters — made up of Kristin and Rikkie Estus and Connor and Katherine Nilson — that have raised $550 for Kansas Honor Flight by running a lemonade stand for the past three years. Thirteen-year-old Kristin Estus tells Hanks, “The best part of having the annual lemonade stand is hearing the veterans’ stories.”
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This Janitor’s School Family Gifts Him Money to Visit His Family Overseas

As the old adage goes, what goes around comes around.
That’s exactly what janitor Rick Spaulding learned recently from the staff of students at Anderson County High School (ACHS) in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.
Spaulding, who has tended the halls of ACHS for the past 16 years, was called in during a recent pep rally to mop up a spill. But, as Lex18 reports, when he walked into the gymnasium, he was surprised to find that the whole school had raised nearly $2,000 to allow him and his wife to visit their son — and their new month-old grandchild that they have yet to meet — in Italy.
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Spaulding hasn’t seen his son, who serves at a naval base near Sicily, since the day he left the country a year and a half ago. “My son is stationed in Italy and we are going to see him,” Spaulding told Lex18. “Words can’t describe the joy that I feel right now.”
Incredibly, the school was able to keep this surprise from Spaulding since earlier this year.
“I was doing my job, just going to take care of the spill, completely oblivious to what was going on,” the 51-year-old told Yahoo! Shine. “The outpouring that the students and staff showed me was overwhelming.”
After all the years of Spaulding taking care of the school, now it’s taking care of him.
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This Father and Son Are Hitting the Trail to Prevent Veteran Suicide

On an average day, 22 United States veterans commit suicide, resulting in more lives lost than the combined military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Air Force veteran Kevin Steele, a resident of Eufaula, Oklahoma, learned of this sobering statistic when a young veteran he knew killed himself after returning home from deployment. The loss devastated Steele, so to raise money for veteran suicide prevention, he decided to hike the Appalachian Trail (a lifelong dream of his) with his son Hunter.
“The one particular kid that I think about, he practically grew up in my house,” Steele told Burt Mummolo of Tulsa’s Channel 8. “If we can do anything to spare any family out there that kind of pain, it’s worth walking 2,200 miles for.”
Kevin and Hunter have named their mission the Hike for Heroes and set a goal to raise $100,000 on their walk, which will take them through 14 states — from Georgia to Maine. They believe that they can meet their target if they find about 5,000 people willing to donate a penny per mile walked — or $22 in memory of those 22 veterans lost every day to suicide. With the funds, the Steeles want to work with the Kentucky-based charity ActiveHeroes to build a retreat center that will provide treatment for veterans suffering from PTSD and other issues.
The duo embarks on March 17. Presumably, every blister they endure will be a reminder that they’re walking to prevent the pain that suicide causes.
 MORE: Salute the Non-Profit That Helps Continue to Serve When They Return Home