Bears on Patrol - Helping Police Help Kids

We would like to share an update about our project to provide teddy bears for the Philadelphia Police Department. We have partnered with Kids Are Heroes to hold an event at Boyd's Bear Country. At this event, people created 32 bears that were sent to Philly. We received a letter from a Lieutenant in the Major Investigations division. Here is the letter:

JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT, YESTERDAY 04-14-10, WE RECEIVED A SHIPMENT OF 32 BEARS.

TWO OF THE BEARS ARE ALREADY ON THEIR WAY TO FAMILY MEMBERS OF A RECENT HOMICIDE VICTIM HERE IN PHILADELPHIA.

THESE BEARS ARE REALLY NICE AND A SPECIAL NOTE IS ATTACHED TO EACH ONE.

OUR VICTIM ASSISTANCE OFFICER CATHERINE BATTLE WILL BE DISTRIBUTING MANY OF THE BEARS TO CHILDREN OF HOMICIDE VICTIMS.

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP

PLEASE PROVIDE ME WITH NAME AND ADDRESS WHERE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BLACKBURN CAN SEND A THANKFUL CORRESPONDENCE.

PATRICK QUINN
LIEUTENANT
MAJOR INVESTIGATIONS

You can donate to this project through the donation module on our home page or on this page.

There are several ways that individuals can help us.  Some of them won't even cost you any money!  Let's outline them.

1. Start a Bears Program in Your Area - You can get your friends (or members of a club or organization) together to start a program in your area. Just contact your local police department and ask them if anyone is providing teddy bears for them on a regular basis. If not, there is just a bit of information that we need you to get from them so we can begin providing bears. First, we will need a shipping address. Then, let them know that they can put their department badge/logo design on the front of the bears' shirts if they would like. If not, the bears will have our standard design on the front, like this image.
   
   
   
   
   
   You can also turn this into a fundraising opportunity. If you would like to conduct a fund drive, you could give us a list of the first names of each of your donors, and we can use those for the bears' names! Once you forward that information to us, we will ship the bears to your local police department.
   
   


2. Adopt A Bear - Click the link to read our lens about how you can sponsor a bear for Bear Hug Training. Each bear that you adopt will be trained and sent out to a police department to give bear hugs to a child who needs them.
   
   


3. GoodSearch and GoodShop - GoodSearch is a Yahoo! powered search engine that donates a penny to the charity of your choice for every web search.  This can really add up, especially if you share this with your friends to grow the number of people searching for us.  Just click the title of this bullet point and Bears on Patrol will already be selected as your charity of choice.  GoodShop lets you select from many popular web stores and donates a portion of your purchase to the charity of your choice.


4. Spread the Word! - Let your friends and family know about this site, as well as the other places we can be found online.  You can find all of these in the Connect menu on this site.  Please feel free to follow us on Twitter and join our cause on Facebook.  We greatly appreciate everyone who has helped us spread the word about the program.