PALMETTO ANIMAL ASSISTED LIFESERVICES

Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services (PAALS) is the only assistance dog organization in South Carolina accredited by the pace-setting Assistance Dogs International. In addition to training life-changing service dogs for people with disabilities, PAALS also trains facility dogs. PAALS dogs are currently working in the Prisma Children's Hospital in Columbia, S.C., in long term care facilities, in counseling practices that specialize in helping veterans with PTSD, in a self defense non-profit that helps women who've been victimized by violence, with a chaplain/counselor at the S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice, with counselors in the S.C. Department of Corrections Office of Victims Services, and more.

Primarily a volunteer-powered organization, PAALS receives no government funds and raises all the money needed to provide its assistance dogs at no charge to qualified applicants. In 2018, PAALS was named by the S.C. Secretary of State as an 'Angel Charity', one of only 10 non-profits in South Carolina honored annually for wise and careful use and management of donor funds.