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Team Give Back member Mallory Wilkins and her son Bo finish up the virtual fundraiser for Carsten Ussery.
When Team Give Back held its virtual fundraiser to help local youngster Carsten Ussery afford a stability dog, they weren’t expecting quite the response they received.
In fact, the deck seemed stacked against the entire event from the start. For one, the event had to be moved to a virtual format due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It was a move that Team Give Back officials worried might hamper people from participating.
For another, the Ussery family and Team Give Back had been working for two years to raise money for the stability dog. With the cost for the service dog being $17,000, they hoped to at least make it to the halfway point of the total cost.
The need for a reliable canine friend was great for Carsten, who suffers from a chromosome abnormality which has forced him to have to deal with multiple surgeries, hospital stays, fall risks, hearing loss and a sensory processing disorder.
However, despite all the organization’s concerns and all of the chaos COVID-19 wreaked on the fundraiser, the virtual event . . .