Deployments

On the 24^th of May, 2022 the community of Uvalde, Texas experienced one of the worst school shootings in United States' history. Within 5 hours CARE was present at the Uvalde Civic Center providing animal therapy to the victim’s family members. CARE Teams continued to provide services to the community there for the next several days. We were then asked to attend and maintain a presence in the schools open for summer school and to be present for the beginning of the fall semester. Over the course of summer and fall around 40 CARE Teams made many 180 mile round trips to be present with the students, teachers, counselors and staff; as well as providing support during special community and library events. CARE has also worked with the Children’s Bereavement Center of South Texas to train additional animal therapy teams who are now available to work with their grief counselors serving the Uvalde community.

Occasionally unexpected, unfortunate events occur with facilities where we provide routine animal therapy. When they do, our CARE teams will quietly visit with the staff impacted by the event. This was the case in July 2022 at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio where a murder suicide occurred with a patient. Several CARE teams visited with staff over the course of two days.

In November 2021 during rapper Travis Scott’s concert at Astroworld in Houston, 10 persons died and around 300 were injured as a result of open seating, an overflow crowd, and ineffective security. CARE Teams were deployed from San Antonio to Houston who joined our Houston CARE Teams to work with the survivors as they returned to the venue to collect belongings left behind when they evacuated. Many were from out of town, state or country. 

They were young and struggling to make sense of the event and of their experiences. Most had to revise travel plans to get home because they had left jackets, purses and wallets at the venue when they evacuated. CARE Teams supported their processing through being quietly present and active listening in addition to providing comfort and diversion.