{"id":4939,"date":"1999-05-15T07:21:12","date_gmt":"1999-05-15T12:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=4939"},"modified":"2014-05-02T21:55:03","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T02:55:03","slug":"foxboro-jaycees-teddy-bear-transfer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=4939","title":{"rendered":"What was the Foxboro Jaycees Teddy Bear Transfer?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cGreen<\/a>
\u201cGreen Bear\u201d is one of the mascots in my office; no idea where he came from but we\u2019re grateful for him taking time to pose for this image.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Robert Gillis<\/em>
\nPublished in The Foxboro Reporter Early 1999<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a terrific program going on here in town that you might not know about here\u2014it\u2019s called the Teddy Train.
\nThe concept is brilliant: Arm Foxboro Police and Fire personnel with stuffed bears and dolls, so when they go out on calls they can give them to children who experience a traumatic event. When kids have been in an accident or fire, or need to be transported by ambulance, emergency personnel want to make the child as comfortable as possible. A terry bear gives them something else to focus on besides their fear. Foxboro police answering domestic violence calls also carry bears, dolls and other stuffed animals to comfort children in crisis.<\/p>\n

The teddy transfer has been going on for several years now, an idea initiated by local resident Steve Cohen, who generously donated dozens of bears to the town. When Mr. Cohen was unable to continue the endeavor, the Foxboro Jaycees took up the project.<\/p>\n

Jaycee \u201cbear\u201d project chairpersons Scott and Michelle Rogers tell me that last Spring the students of Jill Fitzhenry\u2019s 5th grade class at the Ahern Middle School collected many bears for this endeavor, and created a \u201ctrain\u201d in the classroom to place the donated bears. Fitzhenry and this year\u2019s class will try to top last year\u2019s donations, and the Jaycees are hoping to collect even more bears by sponsoring a \u201cTeddy transfer challenge:\u201d The classroom that collects the most stuffed animals between January 4 and April 2, 1999 will win a pizza party, sponsored by the Jaycees.<\/p>\n

Scott Rogers explains, \u201cI absolutely would like to see this be an ongoing project… The rewards are enormous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collection boxes for the bears have been set up at the Foxboro Senior Center and the Ahern School. The Jaycees are asking people to donate bears, dolls and other stuffed animals for this very worthy cause, but ask that only \u201cnew\u201d bears\/dolls be donated, and that the bear\/doll is \u201cchild safe\u201d (in other words, the bear cannot have loose pieces that could come off and be swallowed by young children).<\/p>\n

The Rogers and the project committee have been picking up the teddies from the school and the senior center, and will make sure the teddies reach local police and fire personnel.<\/p>\n

{Note: The Teddy Bear project went on for several years; at some point the rescue personnel has more than enough bears so further collection was unnecessary, although similar programs still run nationwide}<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Robert Gillis Published in The Foxboro Reporter Early 1999 There\u2019s a terrific program going on here in town that you might not know about here\u2014it\u2019s called the Teddy Train. The concept is brilliant: Arm Foxboro Police and Fire personnel with stuffed bears and dolls, so when they go out on calls they can give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foxboro-jaycees"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}