Project Updates

08/19/2009

The Bear Hugs project went so well that I got two awards for it! I received

the Governor’s Volunteer Service Award in the youth category: http://gocyf.az.gov/CYD/Documents/GVSA/8thAnnVSAWinners.pdf

and the Kohl’s Kids Who Care Award (store and regional winner): http://www.kohlscorporation.com/CommunityRelations/scholarship/2009Regio...

At the Governor's Award ceremony, Bob Shogren, the Senior Program Administrator Division for Community and Youth Development in the Governor's office, brought me a huge bag of gently used stuffed animals. I also have $280 worth of store credit at Build A Bear, so I'm planning another day this year to make bears to donate along with donated stuffed animals to a homeless shelter.

08/19/2009

The second Bear Hugs day on October 25th - Make A Difference Day - went great. We ended up with enough donations to make 100 instead of 75 bears so altogether we donated 325 asthma friendly teddy bears. A grand total of sixty youth volunteers made 200 of the bears at Build A Bear. 125 were donated by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America who found out about my project online. 300 of the bears went to the Phoenix Children's Hospital and 25 were donated to the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. All the volunteers who helped make the bears and deliver them to the hospital felt great about doing this. In December, I presented a PowerPoint presentation about Bear Hugs to the Maricopa County Asthma Coalition and while I was there I donated the 1,000 paper origami cranes to the Phoenix Children's Hospital. The adults at the meeting were so impressed with the project that I got a standing ovation for the presentation!

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10/15/2008

Two days before I got my Plum grant, my homeschool group hosted a charity yard sale to raise money for Bear Hugs. We stood on the corner with big signs and yelled "Charity Yard Sale!" at the passing cars. Whenever they turned the corner toward the sale we cheered at them. It was a lot of fun and we raised $829 in exactly 4 hours. A few more donations came trickling in after that. We were over our goal of $1600 and raised $2500! So 50 youth volunteers made 100 asthma friendly teddy bears on October 11th. We delivered the bears to the hospital on Monday, October 13th. Since we raised over our goal, we are going to make 75 more asthma friendly bears on October 25th (Make A Difference Day) and donate them to the hospital on the 27th. I got another grant from the Pay It Forward Foundation to attach a story to each of the bears. Check it out - it's attached! I recommend the movie or book to know the complete concept of "Pay It Forward."