Operation Freedom Paws is Beneficiary of Whole Foods Blossom Hill Community Giving this Wednesday!

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 12, 2014 - PRLog -- Shop at Whole Foods Blossom Hill on Wednesday December 17^th, 2014 from 8am to 10pm and 5% of your total bill will benefit a great cause! Operation Freedom Paws, a local 501(c)3 Non-Profit that rescues dogs from shelters to match with veterans and others with disabilities to train together as a service dog team, has been chosen as the beneficiary of this year’s Whole Foods Blossom Hill Community Giving on Wednesday December 17^th, 2014.  The community giving program chooses a local non-profit to benefit from 5% of that days total sales.

Whole Foods Blossom Hill is located at 1146 Blossom Hill Road San Jose, CA 95118.

About Operation Freedom Paws

Founded in January 2010, Operation Freedom Paws is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that matches dogs with individuals who have Post Traumatic Stress (PTS), Complex-Post Traumatic Stress (CPTS) and/or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) symptoms, or other physical, neurological, psychological or mobility needs.

OFP empowers veterans and others with disabilities to live a quality life by matching clients with their own service dog.  The dogs come primarily from rescue organizations or shelters and are matched to address each client’s physical and/or psychological disability.  OFP’s 48-week, individualized training program first teaches obedience, then specific tasks to assist the handler and become a certified service dog team.  Since 2010, OFP has trained 180 teams, and they have 100 more applicants waiting to be matched.

Operation Freedom Paws pays for all equipment, food, veterinary bills and training with an average cost of $15k per dog.  These services are all offered to clients at no charge.

About Whole Foods Community Giving

Whole Foods Community Giving program is a part of the neighborhood.  As a company, we are quite unique. Our stores are not cookie cutter big box-type stores with directives from “corporate” about how to run the business. Each of our stores has a lot of latitude in deciding the best way to operate that individual store to meet the needs of the local community. That makes community giving really special and fun. Whole Foods Blossom Hill is the only participating location for this event.