By Heidi Clayton
Get a jumpstart on Christmas cards with a beach photoshoot with Santa!
Santa is flying down to South Jersey for Christmas in July! He will be available to pose for photos with your furry friends or children.
As a yearly fundraiser, my charity held our very popular Santa Paws photoshoot where you can bring your dogs to get a professional photo done with Santa just in time for Christmas card season. Last year, we ran into logistical problems and were not able to pull it off.
This year, Santa agreed to stop by earlier so everyone could get their photos with plenty of time to spare before the winter holidays.
We will be teaming up with Shaun Reilly Photography for a Santa Paws Christmas in July photoshoot! Click the link below and bring us your dogs on July 16 to get a unique jumpstart on your Christmas cards this year.
Enter this link to get all of the specifics: tinyurl.com/SRPHoliday. Or, visit ShaunReillyPhotography.com to learn more.
Reilly and his crew can also capture the perfect picture of your kids with Santa if (for some strange reason) dogs aren’t your thing. By the way, Reilly’s dog Nico and Nico’s mom Sia are awesome!
A portion of the fee will be donated to our tradition of giving some very special children a Merry Christmas.
A portion of the proceeds will fund festivities for the Atlantic City Rescue Mission.
In December 2015, Patrolman Michael Gavin of the Atlantic City Police Department went on a domestic call at the Atlantic City Rescue Mission’s family unit. Both of us had been police officers for some time and never knew that there were families with children living at the Mission. Through no fault of the wonderful people who run the Mission, it can be a scary place for an adult let alone a child. He was sad to learn that children would be spending Christmas there, so he took up a collection and on a whim got the kids gifts.
The following year, he floated the idea again. I thought, why not ask the amazing Toni Jordan at the Mission to get a list from the kids of what they actually wanted from Santa?
That year, there were two teenage girls living at the Mission who wanted what just about every teenager on the planet wants, which was Uggs and iPads. When the list was circulated amongst the department, I noticed every gift was covered but the Uggs and iPads. I had by then started Four on the Floor Dog Training and reached out to a few clients. I also enlisted Barbara Gutjahr of Boom Broadcasting to see what we could do to make these girls’ Christmas wishes come true. Thanks to the generosity of several friends and clients, two teenage girls were made very happy that Christmas.
Gutjahr and I decided to start a charity that would make sure that every year Jordan could get the Christmas wishlist from the kids and that we could deliver every single wish. We also decided we could do better than simply dressing Jared Ingenito up as Santa and going to the Mission to deliver the gifts. So, we started hosting an actual Christmas party, complete with the kids getting a police escort to the party and Santa arriving in the SWAT truck. I have been retired from the police force now for five years and am still very committed to making sure Jordan’s kids have a magical Christmas.
What’s new with the charity this year?
This year, I am delighted to report the charity’s new name. The mission remains the same, but I have visions of making the foundation bigger and better each year.
As many of my readers know, my beloved dog Sushi passed away this year. I have renamed the charity “The Sushi Foundation” in honor of my once-in-a-lifetime dog who brought joy from her happy heart wherever she went.
You can contact me to learn more about The Sushi Foundation at heidi@fouronthefloordogtraining.net.
Heidi Clayton started Four On the Floor Dog Training to provide positive, reward-based dog training in South Jersey. She breeds, trains and shows bull terriers under the SoraBully’s Bull Terriers kennel name. Email questions to heidi@fouronthefloordogtraining.net or learn more at https://fouronthefloordogtraining.net
