Students from Central Collegiate have seen a need to comfort people struggling in the community and have begun collecting teddy bears for three agencies involved in outreach. 

Several youths from the Leadership 20 class began collecting teddy bears a month ago for a class project. Their goal is to acquire many furry critters and distribute them to Moose Jaw Transition House, the Moose Jaw Police Service and the pediatric unit at the Dr. F.H. Wigmore Regional Hospital.

The team’s first act was to ask the community for support using social media. The response was impressive, as residents donated about 100 stuffed animals.

“(That was) exciting. It feels cool to know that our community can come together like this,” said Carys Mowrey.

“And the interest we’ve gotten so far is just from one post on Moose Jaw Talks (on Facebook). We haven’t even done anything else. It was just one post to get the ball rolling,” remarked Georgia Greenough. 

“And I don’t think we thought that we would get as many donations as we did from just Facebook alone. Like, we were really blown away by the immediate comments we got on that post,” added Mowry.

The purpose of the Leadership 20 class is to positively affect either the school or the community. Several groups within the class are pursuing projects to benefit either their schoolmates or Moose Javians.  

The idea to collect teddy bears originated after team member Chloe Johns and her sister decluttered their rooms and ended up with bags of stuffed animals. Their father, a policeman, told them that officers usually have stuffed animals in their vehicles so they can give them to children to comfort them if they are involved in a difficult situation.

“And all of our teddy bears were clean and never really used. They were just there for decoration. And we went through them, put them in garbage bags and gave them to my dad,” said Johns. 

“And I was telling him about how we were doing this. And he said that it would be a good idea if we did do something with teddy bears. And we came up with a whole bunch of organizations we want to give them to.”

The students chose transition house, the police service and pediatric ward because of their connections to those places or suggestions from teacher Tana Rowe.

For example, the students chose the pediatric ward because it collected stuffed animals in the past but stopped during the pandemic. However, that unit has now re-opened and has begun accepting donations again. 

Besides the stuffed animals, the group also plans to distribute self-care bags to women and children at transition house. The students plan to use money collected from in-school fundraisers to purchase items such as toiletries, toothbrushes, toothpaste, ponytail scrunchies, and other useful items. 

“Throughout this project, it’s felt really nice to see our community come together, especially after the last few years,” said Mowrey. “It feels so nice … that we get to create something that can bring comfort to so many people.”

Collecting the teddy bears also makes the group happy, said Greenough, since the animals remind them of their childhoods. 

Team Teddy Bear is collecting donations from the community until mid-June. It plans to ask Central Collegiate students to bring new stuffed animals to a pep rally on Friday, June 17. 

Once everything has been collected, the students will deliver the bags to the community agencies before the end of June. 

Any teddy bears not fit to pass along — because of cleanliness or quality — will be donated to the Moose Jaw Humane Society.