Vineland Teacher and Deaf Dog Win National Kindness Award

TeachKind is sending music teacher Chris Hannah and his adopted deaf dog Cole the organization’s first ever Perfect Pitch Pup Ambassadors Award, along with a gift basket for the Hannah family. The award recognizes a social emotional learning program launched at Dr. William Mennies Elementary School in Vineland where Cole helps students reflect on feelings of brokenness, models resilience, and helps teach that disabilities are not inabilities but strengths.

Hannah adopted Cole from a local animal shelter in 2017. Since then the pair have used school assemblies and classroom activities across the Tri State area to promote empathy and inclusion. Their work gained wide attention when Hannah led a school wide sign language serenade for Cole’s ninth birthday, a viral moment that showed how simple classroom practices can shift attitudes and reduce stigma around disability.

Community health is central to this story. Programs that integrate animals into school based social emotional learning can reduce isolation, improve student emotional literacy, and normalize conversations about disability. For Cumberland County families, the success of Hannah and Cole points to low cost, high impact ways schools and local shelters can partner to support children's mental health and social development.

The award comes with a public reminder on broader animal welfare issues. “Cole is the perfect pitch for why all dogs deserve loving homes, and he and Chris are showing young people everywhere that dogs should be treated as members of the family with their own unique personalities, wants, and needs,” says PETA Senior Vice President Colleen O’Brien. PETA also urges guardians to have animals spayed or neutered, to adopt and never buy from pet stores or breeders, and to volunteer or foster to help shelters cope with millions of homeless dogs and cats in U.S. shelters.

For local policymakers and health planners, the Hannah and Cole story underscores the value of funding spay and neuter programs, supporting school based mental health initiatives that include animal assisted learning, and bolstering shelters with resources for foster care and special needs placement. Those steps can improve animal welfare while promoting equity and wellbeing across the community.