Teddy Bears with Love

My mom is helping with a service project for an orphanage in a 3rd world country. They make dresses for the orphanage but are also doing sheets and teddy bears this time. The teddy bears seemed like the perfect project to let my girls help with so my mom brought the stuff for 20 bears over and we got to work. I want my kids to be involved in helping others. We are so blessed and so many others are not. I want my children to not take for granted (at least not as much as they do) the things they have. I want my children to work hard and know what it is like to do something really good. I want my children to think of others and learn to serve them. I want my children to love others.

Even though I'm not sure they really understood why they were doing what they were doing, they loved making these little bears. Alyssa's friends Mady and Caitlyn came over for awhile too. The bears are pretty simple. My mom had already traced the pattern and I did a lot of the basic sewing. Jessica and Taylor helped turn the bears after the sewing and stuff the arms and legs. Alyssa and her friends did that plus started sewing the lines between their arms and body and between their legs and bodies. We didn't get a lot done the first day, but they worked on it and they were proud of what they accomplished.

A few days later, we went to my mom's house and worked on them some more. We did a lot of the sewing with machine, but Alyssa kept working on her bear. Her bear is almost completely done and she's done ALL the work herself except for the machine sewing at the very beginning. Its really cute - a lot of personality. We are hoping that she will get a chance to finish her bear this week. When she does, I'll post a picture of the finished project. The other 19 bears that we started that day are now done except adding the noses. My mom and some of her friends have finished them. I believe they are working on a total of 50 bears so there are more to come!

I remember doing a service project at a church youth conference the summer after my senior year. It was a lot of fun to stuff the bears and stitch them shut. I've always remembered that project. Even the teenage boys helped. Then the bears were donated to shelters for women and children and to fire stations and police dept for them to use to give to children who were involved in fires, accidents, or other scary situations. It was a neat opportunity to serve and have fun and I hope that my kids get to do lots of things like that. I actually hope to do at least one project a year like this while they are still young to give them these type of opportunities. Serving others is truly giving of yourself ... loving others.