2002

100 Ways to Celebrate the Teddy Bear's 100th Anniversary

Just in case you need a few ideas to get the party rolling in your community, here's 100 ideas for jump-starting your celebration of the teddy bear's 100th birthday.

1. Spead the teddy bear's love and compassion by donating blood. For information, call the American Red Cross, 1-800-GIVE-LIFE.
2. Plan a "gifting" of bears for the residents of your local hospital or nursing home or for the victims of emergency situations.
3. Learn more about real bears. Are bears native to your region? If so, find out about if bears still live in your region and where. Are their habitats in danger? Check with your State Game Commission to find out how you can help.
4. To raise money for teddy bear "giftings," have a car show…anything from 1902 to 2002. Put teddy bears in the vehicles! Enlist your local car clubs and dealers to help.
5. Take a class to learn how to make a teddy bear.
6. Host a teddy bear reading hour at your local library or bookstore. You could ask a local personality to read from "bear" books (Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington).
7. Throw a teddy bear-themed baby shower for the first baby born on November 16, 2002, 100 years after "Drawing the Line in Mississippi" cartoon panel appeared in The Washington Post.
8. Offer to give a short program on teddy bears to your local scout troops and schools.
9. To raise money for teddy bear "giftings," volunteer to plan and host a teddy theme party for civic groups, community organizations, the chidren's wing of your local hospital, and and churches.
10. Instead of receiving gifts at your next party, ask each of your guests to donate a teddy bear book to your local library or a bear to your local homeless shelter.
11. Ask your mayor, borough council president, or your state representative to issue a proclamation recognizing the teddy bear and declaring November 2002 National Teddy Bear Month.
12. Host a reception honoring the teddy bear at your courthouse, library, community room, or local mall. Well before the event, send out press releases inviting the local media.
13. Be ready to provide information on the history of the teddy bear and on local teddy bear artists.
14. Enlist a local quilter to make a teddy bear quilt. Then raffle it off to benefit a local charity.
15. Work with your town hall, parks department, library, museum, or school district to set up a teddy bear display featuring artists and manufacturers from your state or region. If possible, keep the display up from November 2001 to November 2002. Ask teddy bear collectors as well as artists to loan their bears for this exhibit.
16. Distribute teddy bear pencils, stickers, cards, and other inexpensive novelties at your local soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
17. Visit one of the many teddy bear shows.
18. Find a teddy bear artist from your own home state by looking through the advertisements in Teddy Bear and Friends magazine. Then invite this artist to your community to show his or her bears.
19. Tell people about the ways teddy bears improve our lives, even our health!
20. Thank blood donors by distributing inexpensive teddy bear stickers to blood donation centers.
21. Make teddy bear shaped cookies and give them as a welcome gift to a new neighbor.
22. Buy or make teddy bear cards and wrapping paper. Or, use little teddy bears as bows on every gift you give this year.
23. Add centennial cheer to your year by hanging our 2002 Century of Bears Wall Calendar.
24. Put teddy bear stickers on the mail you send.
25. Research the lives of these key players in the development of the teddy bear—Theodore Roosevelt, Margarete and Richard Steiff, Seymour Eaton, Clifford Berryman, and Rose and Morris Michtom.
26. Tour the "Year of the Teddy Bear" exhibit at the Toy and Miniature Museum in Kansas City, in person, or online.
27. Call the feature editor of your local newspaper and encourage them to do a story on a local teddy bear artists, collectors, or manufacturers. Provide names and numbers.
28. Listen to The Teddy Bear Hour, this 13-week Webcast begins Tuesday, May 21, 2002, at 2 p.m.
29. Ask your friends and relatives to tell you about their childhood teddy bears. Then compile their stories in a little book you can give them this Christmas.
30. Don't be caught not knowing your teddy bear anatomy.
31. Write a letter to a teddy bear person you really admire and tell this person how much you appreciate what he or she does for the world of teddy bears.
32. Encourage your favorite artists and manufacturers to enter the TOBY Awards. Or, if you make bears, enter yourself!
33. To raise money for teddy bear "giftings," host a teddy bear movie party. For adults, show Brideshead. For children, show anything with Winnie-the Pooh or Paddington.
34. Hand out gummi bears and Teddy Grahams at Halloween.
35. Get your favorite pre-1950s, teddy bear appraised. You might be in for a wonderful surprise!
36. Vote for the Teddy Bear of the Year Award (TOBY). You'll find the ballot in the July/August 2002 issue of Teddy Bear and Friends magazine.
37. Have a teddy bear scavenger hunt. The first person to bring all the correct items to a designated volunteer receives a teddy bear.
38. Design a teddy bear sweatshirt as a gift for yourself or a friend.
39. Place teddy bear stepping stones in your garden.
40. Take a picture of your favorite teddy bear in a natural setting. Then use that photograph to create your own series of greeting cards.
41. Lean how to dance the "Teddy Bear two-step," once a popular dance step.
42. Send teddy bear postcards to someone special.
43. Buy a loved one a teddy bear just to say, "I Love You."
44. Collect gently used teddy bears. Then refurbish the bears by cleaning, stitching, and adding fresh bows and give these bears to residents of nursing homes.
45. Buy the teddy bear postage stamp; it will be available in mid-August.
46. Order teddy bear checks from your financial institution.
47. Plan a road trip to the Smithsonian and visit the Ideal Toy Co. teddy bear.
48. Share your collecting stories with the readers of Teddy Bear and Friends.
49. Whenever you drive this year, travel with a large teddy bear strapped into the passenger seat of your car. Then enjoy making people smile.
50. Make a cake in the shape of a teddy bear. Present it to someone house-bound.
51. If you don't already, subscribe to Teddy Bear and Friends. If you do subscribe, give a friend a subscription as a present.
52. Why not create a teddy bear costume for yourself or your child? You'll be ready for your next masquerade party.
53. Request inexpensive child-safe, teddy bears for your birthday or for Christmas. Then deliver them to children in the hospital or homeless/abused shelters.
54. Decorate your Christmas tree with teddy bear ornaments made from TeddyCrafts magazine. (See the Fall 2001 issue.)
55. Visit a farm or petting zoo and meet the angora goats that provide wool for mohair. Learn more about mohair by reading the July/August 2001 issue of Teddy Bear and Friends.
56. Throughout 2002, put $1 a day into a jar. At the end of the year, splurge on a really great teddy bear.
57. Visit your nearest bear store. Check your Yellow Pages—there may be one in your town!
58. Help your kids make Christmas crafts for their friends and teachers using ideas you find in TeddyCrafts magazine.
59. Call your local radio station to request Elvis's "Be My Teddy Bear" or The Grateful Dead's version of "Teddy Bears' Picnic." While you're on the air, explain the song's significance during the centennial year of the teddy bear.
60. Read "The Roosevelt Bears" by Seymour Eaton.
61. The golliwog has long been called "the teddy bear's best friend." Read "The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls" by Florence K. Upton to meet the original golliwog. Then pick up a copy of Dee Hockenberry's "Enchanting Friends" to learn more about gollies.
62. Tuck a little teddy bear into every bouquet or bottle of wine you give away this year.
63. Spread the word about teddy bears by dropping off your old copies of Teddy Bear and Friends magazines at your doctor's and dentist's offices, and your hair or nail salon. If possible, put a copy in the reception area of your own office or business. Drop off a bunch at the local nursery school for use in crafting projects. (Contact our office to request back issues for gifting.)
64. Wish your friends a happy teddy bear's birthday by sending them teddy bear e-mail postcards.
65. Teach someone to sing "The Teddy Bears' Picnic."
66. Add teddy bears to your seasonal decorations, such as a table centerpiece or door decoration. Put them in unexpected places, such as the powder room and kitchen.
67. Help your kids make teddy bear puppets. (See TeddyCrafts, Fall 2001). Then put on a teddy bear puppet show.
68. Attend the TOBY Awards banquet in Schaumburg, Illinois, in October.
69. Plan a road trip to visit teddy bears. Did you know you can see the real Winnie-the-Pooh that belonged to Christopher Robin Milnes in the Central Children's Room at the Donnell branch of The New York Public Library in Manhattan? Winnie-the-Pooh sits in a glass case surrounded by Eeyore, Kanga, Piglet, and Tigger. The library is right across the street from the Museum of Modern Art.
70. Give bears to the personnel at your police station, fire station, emergency works, etc., to thank them for the work they do for all of us.
71. If the weather is warm, host a teddy bear ice cream social to raise money for a local charity. If the weather is cool, host a teddy bear tea.
72. Have a teddy bear street party. Drinks are free to all who bring their teddy bears.
73. Distribute a teddy bear thought-for-the-day for each day in November 2002 to all churches, community groups, clubs, and schools in your community for inclosure in their bulletins.
74. Provide the local media with names and contact information for local teddy bear artists and with the history of the teddy bear.
75. Work with your local Chinese restaurants to create fortune cookies containing teddy bear messages inside. Then during November 2002, ask these restaurants to distribute these teddy bear fortune cookies to patrons.
76. Schedule teddy bear artists to present talks at local schools, clubs, and civic meeting. Everyone from the Girl Scouts to the Rotary Club needs programs!
77. Have a teddy bear ball to raise money for a favorite charity.
78. Solicit designs for teddy bear badges or buttons, posters, T-shirts, teddy bear balloons, and teddy bear bumper stickers. Let a local art school (or panel of artists and printers) select winning entries for teddy bear badges and buttons, teddy bear balloons, and teddy bear bumper stickers. Then have the winning entries made, and distribute them everywhere!
79. Contact your local cable station and offer to produce a program on teddy bears.
80. Teach people about the importance of organizations like Good Bears of the World and how they give bears to people in need.
81. If you yourself are not a member, join Good Bears of the World.
82. Host a radio contest by using questions based on teddy bear history. The first caller who gives the correct answers wins a bear.
83. Create a teddy bear promotional/educational exhibit for display at businesses, fairs, and banks.
84. Say thank you to all who make your community run—teachers, scout leaders, fire departments, ambulance personnel, police departments, teachers, school board members, and other community services—by giving them small teddy bear items.
85. Ask local businesses to put, "Happy 100th Birthday to the Teddy Bear" on their signs during November 2002.
86. Ask a billboard company for use of a billboard during November 2002. Then solicit billboard designs. Select one to unveil during November 2002.
87. Have a teddy bear 5K walk or run to raise money for your local animal shelter.
88. Distribute Teddy Grahams to all school staff from the custodians and cafeteria staff to the bus drivers and sports coaches.
89. Host a teddy bear Family Fun Night, carnival, or hayride.
90. Make one of the teddy bears featured on our Web site. Choose between Adam, Colin, Claire, or Little Benny. You can order kits for them, too.
91. Fill a jar with Gummi Bears and invite people to guess the number inside. The winner receives a bear.
92. Make teddy bear flags or banners to fly during November 2002.
93. Add a teddy bear message to your Web site, to your e-mail and to every piece of correspondence you send during 2002.
94. Create little teddy bear care bags to deliver as special greetings for birthdays, get wells, etc.
95. If you're lucky enough to still have your childhood bears, put them on display. If yours are long gone, try to track down the bear just like the one you loved as a child.
96. Create a Christmas bear display in your home, and invite the community to a Holiday Bear House. If you'd like, you could even run a little gift shop and feature items from local crafters.
97. Plan a concert of teddy bear theme music.
98. Celebrate Easter with teddy bears dressed as bunnies and ducks. Patterns are available in the Spring 2002 issue of TeddyCrafts.
99. Go online to discover just how big the world of teddy bears is! Learn more about your favorite artists and manufacturers by visiting their websites.
100. Hug everyone dear to you including all those who have helped you implement these plans!