Recycling for Roberta at Blythewood Middle

Who could resist this cute face!

Roberta is a 5 yr. old yellow lab service dog trained by Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services. She is fully certified to work with anyone with an anxiety related disorder, a mobility related disability, intellectual disability, PTSD, and Autism. She has a vocabulary of roughly 75 visual and verbal cues. She is capable of working for verbal and non-verbal individuals.

Roberta is currently working on her third year as a working service dog at Lonnie B. Nelson Elementary School. She works school-wide but focuses most of her day on working within a self-contained special education classroom setting. Roberta opens/closes doors and drawers for students unable to do so. She also retrieves dropped pencils, crayons, papers, and scissors for students with limited mobility. Roberta assists with getting students with anxiety related concerns in/out of various areas of the building, such as the bus area, cafeteria, recess area, and health room. 

Roberta also utilizes an easy speak communication button to engage students and facilitate transitions for students. She uses a specially designed velcro cape to assist with instruction of colors, color words, numbers, number words, sorting, counting, patterning, time telling, money, vocabulary recognition, and many other skill sets. Roberta assists with O.T. with retrieval and tug behaviors. She also is trained to provide gentle firm pressure to specific areas of the body to stimulate a feeling of calm.

Blythewood Middle School is teaming up with Roberta and collecting empty soda cans.  All soda cans that are collected will be crushed and weighed, then recycled for money which will be used to pay for Roberta's yearly Medical/Well Visits!

How can you help?

Send into BMS any empty soda cans you have at home and have your child turn them into the bin in the cafeteria that is marked "Recycling for Roberta." 

For more information about Roberta click on the link below:
Roberta in Action