Thousands of kids comforted by teddy bears stitched with love

A few ounces of colorful fabric and batting, a smiling face drawn on in ink, a ribbon tied in a bow. That’s what goes into the simple teddy bears made by JerLisa Stitches of Love volunteers. That, plus a lot of time and even more compassion.

Since 2009, JerLisa Stitches of Love founder Nikki Larsen said, the group has made and donated more than 4,000 bears to children in crisis. The toys go to hospital emergency rooms and pediatric departments, and to firefighters and other first responders.

They go to agencies and organizations including the Children’s Crisis Center of Stanislaus County, Child Protective Services, The Salvation Army, Haven Women’s Center of Stanislaus, the Stanislaus Family Justice Center, Sierra Vista Child and Family Services and Camp Taylor.

In any case, the goal is simple: to comfort children.

“I think it’s incredible that they create a handmade item to give to children who are suffering,” said Kimberlie Gamino, executive director and founder of Modesto-based Camp Taylor, which offers programs for children and young people with heart disease. “We appreciate that they care about children with heart disease. We’ve been able to gift a number of children over the years with bears the group has made. It’s wonderful to see the smiles on the faces of the children who receive them.”

Other recipients have included children displaced by fire, children at car crash scenes, children being removed from a horrifying home environment.

Larsen shared an example of the latter: “There was a house, and the individuals who lived in the house were home-invasion perpetrators – I guess that’s the word I want. Anyway, they were not nice people, and they had a meth lab in the house as well. The police went up, and they brought a little boy out, ahead of the adults, and stripped the child of the meth clothes, put some (clean) clothes on him, gave him a teddy bear and a quilt and then took him away.”

Much better parents have told Larsen and other volunteers of bears that still have a special place in children’s rooms or get taken on vacation, long after the children received the stuffed animals during hospital visits.

A 69-year-old Modesto resident, Larsen knows all too well the impact a simple gift can have.

She and her late husband had five children, three of whom were born with cerebral palsy and developmental delays. Daughter Lisa lived three years; son Jeremy died at 17; and oldest daughter Heather, now 50, still lives with Larsen and her second husband, Brooks, but needs care.

With three special-needs children, medical bills were high, Larsen said, so her husband worked a full-time job and two part-time jobs, while she worked as a dressmaker and took in whatever sewing work she could get.

“At one point, we just were not making it,” she said, and their church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, helped with basic commodities. A simple pair of pajamas for Heather, Larsen recalled, “was the gem of what we do now.”

“I didn’t have the time, energy or emotional stamina to do it myself,” she said of making the pj’s, “but I knew how important it was to Heather and to me.”

Flash-forward a few decades. When Larsen retired from operating Cumorah Books, she knew she wanted to create a supportive group with a focus on creating handmade items through sewing, quilting, knitting, crocheting and other talents. She founded JerLisa Stitches of Love, named in honor of Jeremy and Lisa.

The group has made and donated a range of items, including dolls, baby- and adult-size quilts, caps for chemotherapy patients, food aprons for seniors at care homes and “infant demise outfits for babies who don’t make it.”

The bears always were part of the mix, but the Teddy Bear Project began a couple of years ago. “The ladies really liked the teddy bears because they’re easy to do and the rewards are so great,” Larsen said.

Judy Waddell, one of four Stitches of Love volunteers working on bears on a Thursday afternoon earlier this month, said she decided this summer to start keeping track of how many she made. “In the month of August, I did 139,” she said. “It’s something simple to do; you just pin them together, and it’s mindless … not a time-waster but relaxing. Whenever I need to get away from my hubby and the TV, that’s where I go,” she added, laughing.

Fellow volunteer MaryAnn May got choked up recalling times related to the teddy bears. Once, she said, she was going to Turlock for the fourth birthday party of her niece’s son. A family friend is a firefighter, and his crew was to bring a firetruck by the park for the kids to see. May figured that while there, she’d give about 60 bears to the firefighters.

“All the kids had to see them, and I knew the kids were probably going to want them – you know, 4-year-olds,” she said, “so I was prepared – if they wanted one, I was going to let them have it; I wasn’t going to take it away from them. So as we talked about what we were doing the bears for, and we were giving them to the firemen, all the little kids gave up the bears they were holding and gave them to the firemen. So touching for 4-year-olds to realize …” Her eyes watering, May trailed off.

The Teddy Bear Project has benefited from two Eagle Scout projects, LDS youth group efforts and the 2015 Love Modesto event, where 422 bears were made.

But demand for the bears is growing as partner organizations distribute them to more areas of the county, like Patterson, Larsen said.

At Stitches of Love bear-making sessions, anywhere from three to more than 20 volunteers have attended. Larsen and other volunteers hope people with time to offer will help the Teddy Bear Project keep up.

“Hearing the stories of how the kids are so appreciative of it, knowing it’s important to them,” May said, talking about her involvement. “I can’t imagine to be in their places, or my children or their grandchildren to be in that predicament.

“Just the comfort of having something to hold, that kind of says it right there.”

This story was originally published November 28, 2015 at 4:03 PM.