Our First Disney Event

Posted by Gabe on March 6, 2010 under Kids are Heroes | 3 Comments to Read

We completed our first Disney event today. To catch those of you up who have not been following, we hosted a “Give a Day Get a Disney Day” event at Boyd’s Bear Country in Gettysburg where people stuffed bears for donations to sick children in exchange for Disneypark tickets.

When I went into this day I thought it would be a lot of fun. I knew the kids would think hard and be real careful when they picked out their bears. I must admit I underestimated the parents though, in a big way. I figured all of them were in it just for the Disney tickets and therefore would pay for their quota of bears and be done with it. Boy was I wrong. These folks did hold fund raisers at school, pleaded with their families and neighbors and sought out funding wherever they could. People who had to buy just one bear stuffed eight of them! I was so moved by this. The kids were so excited to build so many bears. One boy built a bear with a camouflage jacket and named him ‘Sarge’. Another stuffed a dog and called him ‘Fetch’. As they moved through the assembly line they got to choose different colored beads as the makeup of the stuffed animal. Blue represented bravery, orange honesty, pink happiness, etc. The kids had such a good time mixing these emotions together. But there was nothing more moving than the letters that were written.

Part of the project was to draw pictures and write letters to the kids who would benefit from the bears. These are either hospitalized children or ones in an orphanage in Uganda. We asked the kids to think hard about what to write to them as the letters would accompany the bears. I happened to read one of them written by Alivia who is just five years old. It reads:

“This bear is brave and will protect you when you are scared. It will give you hugs and play with you. Take it on your adventures so you can have a friend. – From Alivia”

This sentiment pretty much summed up the day. MaryMargaret brought her friend Emma to help in the craft room and they both had a wonderful time. As many as 40 bears were built by twelve families — and this was just the dry run. We are shooting for at least 300 people for our next event scheduled for April 10th. I can’t wait.