One would expect not many good stories coming in the wake of the elementary school shootings in Newtown, CT. However, a group of Mineola residents have taken it upon themselves, raising $9,000 to support a good cause and provide help to others in the wake of the tragedy.

After the shootings, many residents were left wondering what they could do; many, including Mineola Board of Education member Christine Napolitano reached out through Facebook asking that "just every day do a random act of kindness in the name of one of the kids," fellow trustee Artie Barnett said. Over 1,200 people responded to Napolitano's call for good deeds, but Barnett wanted to go further.

"One night we were just kinda, a bunch of us were just talking and I was like 'everyone's looking to do something, why don't we see if people want to throw in $10 a piece and over a few months we could raise enough to sponsor a guide dog'," he said. "And the next morning I had a $10 bill in my inbox from one person and then two more people showed up at my door handing me money and off we went. This had nothing to do with the board or anything, this was just Facebook, you know, just the community." Called "Soto the Guide Dog Fundraiser," the group's original goal was to simply raise $6,000 for one dog for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, the group raised the funds ahead of schedule. It can take up to $55,000 to raise a dog from a puppy through adulthood and training.

"Just to get them born and into that first year of puppy raising is about $6,000," Barnett said. "And then to go through the whole program of training them and training them with the people that get them, yeah it's 55 grand in the end. So this is just six grand just to sponsor them to start off." The foundation then offered a deal: a second dog could go through the program at half-price, for an additional $3,000.

"We were originally just trying to raise $6,000 and then they offered us a second if we could raise $9,000 by New Year's Eve, so we went for it," Barnett said.

The group hit the extra mark three days before the deadline. There were no plans to continue collecting money after hitting the second mark. The foundation allows anyone who raises the $6,000 to name the dog, which in this case would be in memory of Vicki Soto, one of the first grade teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary.

"We set a goal, we made our goal so stop it there," said Barnett, who has worked with the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind in the past, raising two dogs: Willie in 2009 (currently working with a woman in Queens) and Basil in 2010. "They just want you to socialize them, get them used to being around people, get them used to being around dogs, noises, machinery, cars, any number of things, get them used to stairs and elevators, just subways, trains, all the stuff that they're going to have to deal with in everyday life; just expose them to it," he said of what the foundation asked of him. "We're not really training them, we're just getting them to be calm, then they go into their final training when they teach them how to actually guide."