“Where did the time go,” is usually something you hear old people say. But even for me, I wonder where this whole year went too. It seems like it was summer not too long ago and that I just started high school last week.
With Christmas right around the corner, I just finished my 2nd Annual Teddy Bear Fundraiser for Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, California. Through the support and generous donations from people all over the country and even a few in Japan, I was able to raise $1,475, including my own money, to buy 500 teddy bears for the kids. Although we didn’t reach last year’s amount, I know each bear will make a difference in someone’s life.
Bears of all sizes, colors and shapes have been ordered and should arrive by the end of this week. They get unpacked from their boxes, sorted, and then my parents and I will tie a donation tag on each and every bear with the name of the person that donated. After each one has their special name tag around their neck, they are neatly packed again in larger bags ready for their trip to San Diego on December 18.
500 bears will be fill about 10 large bags. Since we don’t have a mini-van, we contacted our local Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Temecula, California. They were generous and offered to give us a half-price deal on a rental and said they would check to see if they could make a full donation. So hopefully, by the time the delivery date comes, they will be able to do that. Either way, I appreciate their support and help toward this effort.
Thank you to every person who donated to this great cause. I couldn’t have done this without you. To see a list of the supporters, please visit Pencil Bugs. After we deliver the bears, I will post a short video and update to this story. The video is now online on my YouTube Channel.
Charity should not be just at Christmas. Since I started my business, I have been donating to help kids in various ways throughout the year. There are so many good causes and people that need help in different situations. 2011 may be the start of something new in my charitable efforts. Stay tuned.
Last month as I began high school, I thought it was best to take a break from writing my blog. I figured high school would be a lot different than middle school and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t overloaded with things that could distract from school work.
Then the week before Thanksgiving, my project exploded! 
Once everything was calculated, the grand total was 1800 bears. So that our entire garage wasn’t completely filled with teddy bears all at once, we ordered 1000 bears. 40 large boxes arrived on Wednesday by UPS. I think our UPS driver was more than a little surprised when he got the order to deliver to our house. He actually called ahead of time to make sure someone would be home which Mom and Dad appreciated. I was excused from a school field trip on Thursday so I could start unpacking, sorting, counting, and tagging the 1000 bears that arrived.
Tying donation tags on each one went a lot faster than we had expected. Being organized ahead of time by printing the tags, punching holes in them, cutting pieces of yarn to tie them onto the bears, and even stringing them really helped the whole process. Of course Mom and Dad helped a lot. Otherwise, I would still be tying on tags instead of writing this blog.
Thank you again to everyone who donated and supported my project. Our coordinator at Rady was amazed when we called to tell her we had a few more than our original plan of 250. All she could say was “WOW”!