Teddys for Terror Victims, a reflection after 15 years

Children aren't born to hate and discriminate. Children are born to love and be loved, to be held, embraced and be cherished as important and significant humans. We here at Bears from Bergenfield are celebrating our 15 years of collecting donations of slightly used and brand new stuffed toys to be recycled to those children in need of a teddy bear hug. We have collected these toys to benefit those children, irregardless of their ethnic and religious backgrounds. We do distribute toys to children that are Jewish, Muslim, Christian and any other religious affiliation. We distribute via Lions' Club and Bergenfield Headstart. We ship to Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba, One Family Fund, Miklat bat Melech, and the matnas in Gilo at this point. We have collected close to 180,000 stuffed toys over these past 15 years and are quite proud of our achievements.

However, we are in need of 150 more usable stuffed toys in mint condition to redistribute during this holiday season. If you are in the position to donate stuffed toys and/ or cash donations to enable us to ship the toys, we would be bear-y appreciative.

If you are able to donate, please contact me, Rabbi Claire Ginsburg Goldstein at lgcg98@aol.com. I would love to hear from you and have you counted among our teddy bear givers.

The pictures above depict those who help us collect the toys here in my Hebrew school classes, distribute in Israel, and those who are the recipients.