College student sets out to help the hearing impaired

West Palm Beach - Shoshana Rappaport lost her hearing when she was a little girl. Her ear problems caused her to lose her balance when she was younger. It wasn't unusual for her to end up with bumps and bruises. "I am deaf with assistance of cochlear implant which I was implanted with when I was in 10th grade, which gives me about 85 percent of an ability to hear. I would fall down the stairs, I hit my head against the walls and it was pretty bad." 

Shoshana is now 18 years old and in college at Northwood University. She has a service dog, eight month old Macy, which she says she trained to help her open doors and pick up objects. "Well I started volunteering at shelters when I was nine and I would work with the dogs and teach them basic obedience because it improved their chances of being adopted and staying in a forever home. My goal is to start a service dog organization to train autism service dogs for children." Soshana is receiving a lot of support from the university in her quest to achieve her dreams."

Robert Cabello, who is Dean of Students at Northwood University said, "She is living in our residence halls right now, we had to make some accomodations in order to assist her.I think that if you have an opportunity to see Macy her service dog you see that this is an animal that has been trained extremely well to assist someone who is in need of those sorts of services."

Northwood University
2600 North Military Trail
West Palm Beach
561-478-5500