BROCKTON, Mass. — A young Brockton boy is making a difference tonight, by helping wounded warriors. He's come up with his own non-profit all in an effort to help soldiers fighting PTSD.
Ten-year-old Zeke Lemieux wanted to make an impact in his community. His goal to raise money for Paws-4-Vets, a North Carolina based organization that specializes in training service dogs.
A few months back, he was reading an article about post traumatic stress disorder and came across a story about the program and from that moment on he made helping others his mission.
Lemieux said, "Pretty much this girl, she was raising money for her dad to get a PTSD dog and I thought why not do that."
Back in October, Zeke and his mom Janice created High Five for Soldiers, which helps fund the training of service dogs.
Janis Lemieux said, "He came home from school one day and said mom I got it, I was reading about soldiers with PTSD and service dogs and that's what I want to do. Knowing nothing about that, I said okay lets see what we can find out."
Zeke got in contact with Sarah Wishart. She's a former department of defense worker who served in Afghanistan. Following her tour, she suffered from PTSD and was paired with a service dog from Paws-4-Vets.
"During my last tour in Afghanistan, one of my best friends was killed while I was there," Wishart said.
Cowboy, is a dog currently in training and is named after Sarah's best friend's call sign or nickname from the war and Cowboy's also the first dog funded through High Five for Soldiers.
Relying heavily on mostly nickel donations, Zeke has raised $160, but still has more fundraising to do to help Cowboy out.
Zeke's mother Janice said, "Just to see him come alive, every time a check comes in or a bag on nickels comes in his face lights up, he is excited, he is proud. He has made a great connection with Darby, with Sarah, it is important to feed into the passions our kids have."
Zeke and his mother have set up a GoFundMe page. If you are interested in donating,
[ click here. ]