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Thomas Panek

Guide Dog Graduation: Yorktown-Based Nonprofit Provides Pups To Homes Across US Guide Dog Graduation: Yorktown-Based Nonprofit Provides Pups To Homes Across US
Guide Dog Graduation: Yorktown-Based Nonprofit Provides Pups To Homes Across US A new class of guide dogs that graduated from a New York nonprofit organization – including one dog going to serve the organization’s CEO – demonstrates the group’s 60-year commitment to changing the lives of people with vision loss or blindness. On Friday, April 12, Guiding Eyes for the Blind held one of its biannual guide dog graduations, celebrating the hard work of volunteers and pups alike and officially transferring the furry friends’ care to their new owners. However, this graduation was a little different from others — one of the graduates was a yellow lab named “Ten,” who had tra…
Run A Marathon Blind? Guiding Eyes Running Guide Dogs Make It Possible Run A Marathon Blind? Guiding Eyes Running Guide Dogs Make It Possible
Run A Marathon Blind? Guiding Eyes Running Guide Dogs Make It Possible Thomas Panek, president and CEO of Yorktown Heights-based non-profit Guiding Eyes for the Blind, has been a runner his whole life. “I ran on my cross-country team in high school; it was around that time that I began losing more and more of my vision,” recalled Panek. “I would always follow the runner in front of me, afraid to get out in front, but I kept getting hurt.” Running became harder, but Panek never stopped. In his 30s, guided by human volunteers, he completed 20 marathons—including New York and Boston. Nevertheless, he still wondered what it would be like to be more independent,…