by Lindsay Chamberlain, Contributing Writer
PASS CHRISTIAN (GG) — Children and adults alike enjoyed a “paw-some” experience at the Pass Christian Public Library last Saturday. On December 21, 2024, the Visiting Pet Teams of South Mississippi hosted “Sit, Stay, Read,” a volunteer-led effort to encourage reading confidence in young children, in which participants read aloud to dogs. From ten to noon, children got to develop their reading skills and enjoy the company of furry friends.
The dogs are all trained by the Visiting Pet Teams of South Mississippi to work as optimal therapy dogs for people in need across the Gulf Coast. Their training is held and coordinated by a nationwide nonprofit organization called Pet Partners, which allows ordinary pet owners to have their pets serve the needs of their local communities.
The dogs and their owners provide comfort and joy to a wide variety of facilities, including hospice care, hospitals, memory care facilities, and special education classrooms. They serve from Pass Christian to Pascagoula throughout the year with the help of responsible pet volunteers. Stella’s owner, retired nurse Jamie Hobbs, says it’s “all the best parts of nursing, without having to chart.”
The next Sit, Stay, Read event of 2025 will occur in March of 2025 at the Pass Christian Library. For more information, go to https://www.harrison.lib.ms.us/.
