Vose Library’s Vose or Virtual Wednesday series is scheduled to feature Christina “Christy” Gardner at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 19, via Zoom; closed captioning will be available.

Gardner is a 39-year-old retired Army veteran from Oxford. She was injured overseas in 2006 and spent nearly five years rehabilitating before she was finally able to live on her own again and started participating in adaptive sports, because of her service dog Moxie.

She’s now an assistant captain of the U.S. Women’s Para Ice Hockey Team and was an alternate for Tokyo 2020 in shot put and discus. She also represented the U.S. at the Para Surfing World Championships in 2020.

Gardner has been training service dogs and therapy dogs for nine years but wanted to grow that dream to help more Mainers in need. She founded Mission Working Dogs in July 2020 as a local nonprofit to do just that. The organization trains service and therapy dogs for the community and has cleared land to build a new training center this winter.

For a Zoom registration link, call 207-785-4733, email [email protected] or stop by the library at 392 Common Road in Union.

In-person events are subject to transition to fully virtual should COVID-19 impact our ability to meet in person.