Melissa Sanchez wanted to make a difference in someone's life.

Now she's getting that chance through Paws with Purpose, a Louisville based nonprofit that works with inmates to train service dogs.

We spoke to Melissa and Paws with Purpose volunteer Alan Baldwin to learn more about the program and how it's changing lives.

Paws with Purpose Trains and Places highly skilled assistance dogs in the Louisville and surrounding area in Kentucky.

These dogs are placed with individuals with mobility disabilities or are placed in facilities such as hospice homes, therapeutic environments or training programs centered around two correctional institutions where the inmates are primary trainers for the dogs.

One is the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women in Pui Valley and the Federal Medical Center facility in Lexington.

Separating.

I've been in the program a little over two years, and this program has taught me a lot about, you know, the behaviors of dogs and how to train through those big eight years.

I came in here thinking that, you know, I have probably know everything because I had dogs out there.

And this is totally different.

They're trained to like, lift and lower the pedals on the wheelchairs.

They can take your shoes off, take your coat off.

They're just trained a lot just to be able to help somebody that is disabled.

Pause with purpose places the dogs into the training environment.

Beginning around 8 to 10 weeks of development and they usually stay in the program until around 18 months to two years.

During the work week, the inmates are the primary trainers and then on the weekends they go with volunteers so that they're exposed to more things in the public sector like children, crowds, cars, things that they wouldn't get in the prison program.

Ben Kylie is my first dog and she's getting ready to go to Nashville, Tennessee.

She's going to start working in therapy.

It's going to be a little bittersweet, but I know she's going to go and touch a lot of lives.

So that makes it all worth it.

When the dogs start off as a as a puppy at eight weeks and to then see the progress that they make in one year's time is very rewarding for them.

It builds their confidence.

It builds their personal skills.

It takes away some of the loneliness.

I don't even feel like I'm in prison.

This has become part of my life and I will continue when I get out of here.

I'm going to Ashland University and I'm trying to get my degree in sociology so I can become a Christian counselor.

And I want to open a halfway house for drug addicts and what I'm going to do is incorporate this dog training and try to give these people, you know, some kind of stability in their life to be able to, you know, make a living, not just a just thankful to God that he's allowing me to be a part of this program because it hasn't affected my life tremendously.

Wow.

Talk about second chances.

Ellen Baldwin says Paws with Purpose was the first organization in Kentucky to develop a prison program for training dogs to serve the community.

That program began 20 years ago.