Mickler is just chill. He does a lot of tricks and knows a lot of things, but he doesn’t get excited easily. He’s happy to sit by your side and keep you calm.

Mickler is a 19-month-old yellow Labrador and golden retriever mix who has an important job. He’s the new courthouse and facility dog at the Center for Child Protection. What that means is he’s allowed into the courthouse with a child who has to testify against his or her abuser. He sits in the witness stand with the child, ready to be pet whenever that child gets anxious.

Mickler came to the center about two months ago after the center lost its first therapy dog, Sydney, in December. Sydney had been with the center since 2009.

Even before Sydney died, the center applied for a grant with Impact Austin’s Girls Giving Grants program to help offset the $15,000-a-year cost of keeping a service dog. The cost includes all the usual dog stuff such as food and veterinary care, as well as continual training for the dog and handlers.

Girls Giving Grants is a program for high school girls that teaches them about the world of nonprofit organizations and how to evaluate their programs. The girls meet every other Sunday from September through April.

Each girl who is accepted into the program gives $100 to help fund a grant. Organizations then are invited to apply for grants. Since 2006, Girls Giving Grants has given $63,100 to the Austin community.

This year 68 girls were part of the program. They divided into teams to investigate the 39 grant applications they received. Each team looked at five or six applications and picked a favorite and one representative to make the case for the group’s choice. "These are real world skills," says Impact Austin Girls Giving Grant Chair Ami Kane.

"It’s so important for young women today to make decisions," says Keri Stephens, whose daughter Sarah Jane participates. Girls Giving Grants helps them learn how to do that with the support of adult volunteers.

Participant Akshara Anand says she learned how much goes into running a nonprofit organization and how specific they are. "There’s all different nonprofits that meet the needs of Austin," she says.

After the girls narrowed the grants down to two applications, they went on site visits. They learned how Mickler helps children. They did an exercise in which they had to blow popcorn through a straw and move it across the room toward Mickler for him to eat. The center does the exercise with kids who are hyperventilating or having trouble catching their breath to help calm them down.

Of course, the girls were sold on Mickler and voted to give the $6,800 they raised to help pay for the cost of his care and training.

"As a grant writer, this meant a lot to me," says Sharon Bayliss, the grants manager of the Center for Child Protection. It’s not the largest grant the center has received, but it’s the work that went into it and the fact that it’s young people helping other young people that makes it special.

Mickler was born to be a service dog. He came to the center from the Assistance Dogs of the West, which specializes in providing therapy dogs for veterans. He was named after a fallen serviceman, as all of the Assistance Dogs of the West are.

Mickler was picked for his disposition, one that would not get excited or rattled by things around him, one that would be happy to just sit and be loved by a child.

He knows about 90 commands. "I don’t know 90 commands," says Amanda Van Hoozer, the center’s director of program services, who is one of six people the center has trained to work with Mickler. She also is one of two people Mickler goes home to at night. During the day, he’s in the courthouse or in the office.

In the office, he travels from office to office visiting employees, leaving toys everywhere he goes. He is, after all, still a big puppy.

This year, in addition to this grant, the girls sold T-shirts to raise money to create six $100 scholarship for a girl to be part of Girls Giving Grants. That scholarship will be awarded for next year’s program.

This year’s Girls Giving Grants participants found different ways to fund their $100. President Emma Jane Hopper gave some of her babysitting money and swim instructor paycheck. Caroline Keyes started a company translating websites from English to Spanish and Spanish to English. She gave some of her earnings to the program. Elizabeth Tiedt used babysitting money and donations from her parents to earn $100 this year, but she’s planning on putting earnings from a summer job at the Paramount Theatre toward next year’s $100.

"We just want to say thank you," Van Hoozer says. "You girls put a lot into this process."