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Photograph by Vicki Thompson

Furry Donations: Lincoln High School students Magaly Jimenez (left) and Sonia Lopez sit among hundreds of donated stuffed animals. They and classmates Karina Velasquez, Rosa Romero and Candy Avila, collected more than 575 teddy bears to distribute to local children as part of a community service project. They donated to O'Connor Hospital, City Team Ministries and Sacred Heart Community Services.

Students collect 575 stuffed animals to donate locally

By Mary Gottschalk

Magaly Jimenez is the teddy bear queen. The 16-year-old Lincoln High School junior spearheaded a teddy bear drive that has collected and donated 575 stuffed animals since October, with 13 more plastic trash bags waiting to be sorted.

The project started when Magaly, Rosa Romero, Sonia Lopez, Candy Avila and Karina Valesquez enrolled in a leadership class at Lincoln last fall.

Instructor Paul Slayton split the class into groups to choose community projects to work on during the semester.

"The idea is to serve the local community," he says.

Typical projects from the past two years include raising money for the victims of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 tsunami in Asia as well as students organizing and hosting teacher appreciation luncheons.

While other projects have been wide-reaching, Slayton says he believes Magaly and her group didn't realize how big their project would become.

However, he says he wasn't worried. "Magaly is kind of a star. She's one of our kids who is involved in everything and doing really well," he says.

Magaly says once the group got together to discuss ideas, she kept thinking of her experience at one of the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life events where cancer survivors and supporters walk to raise money.

"I thought a lot of things were being done for adults, but people forget about the little kids. I wanted to do something for them so they would know somebody cares," she says.

Magaly came up with the idea of collecting stuffed animals to donate to children.

"I've had a [Nestle's] Quik bunny since I was a little girl, and it's always a comfort," she says.

"We called it the Teddy Bear Drive, but we have everything from dogs to ponies to unicorns."

Magaly and her classmates publicized their drive and put collection barrels at the Rose Garden Library, Lincoln and Trace Elementary School. They soon found themselves deluged with stuffed animals.

Some of the animals were new, but more were used.

Magaly was touched by the children who donated their own bears and other animals, admitting she's still too attached to her bunny to consider giving it away.

Initially, Magaly approached O'Connor Hospital and asked if it had a pediatric ward that could use the stuffed animals.

"We don't have a pediatric ward, but we do have the Family Health Center, and that's where we could use the teddy bears," says Kathy Douglass, public relations manager for O'Connor.

For infection control reasons, Douglass says she told Magaly only new stuffed animals with tags on them could be accepted.

On Dec. 18, Magaly and her classmates delivered 93 new stuffed animals to O'Connor's Family Health Center.

Within three weeks, only a dozen were left.

"It worked out great because we serve mostly underprivileged kids, and it was around Christmas so it was a great time to do it," Douglass says.

"Sometimes they were given to kids who were crying or getting shots. All of them have gone to kids who were mostly uninsured. It's neat to be able to give these out to the kids."

With O'Connor's policy of only accepting new bears, Magaly realized she had to find a home for the "nearly new" animals. She turned to CityTeam Ministries.

Between Christmas and New Year's, Magaly, Candy, Sonia, Karina and Rosa took 473 teddy bears and other stuffed animals to CityTeam.

That donation was very welcome, says Hermie Smit, senior program manager of CityTeam Family Services.

Smith says the animals will be used to follow up on families that received toys and food from CityTeam over the holidays.

"We distributed 8,000 toys to very needy families and we'll use these to follow up. Our goal is not to serve a family at Christmas and then say, 'We'll see you next year.'

"We have a presence in about 40 different neighborhoods where we do outreach. We reach out to youths and young ones. These will be used to build a relationship, to meet their needs and empower people to get out of poverty," he says.

Additionally, Smit says there were some children the organization was unable to serve over the holidays and now it can.

Smit says the gift of a stuffed animal is a way "we can show we love them and show we care."

Since showing children that someone cares was Magaly's initial goal, she's pleased.

"I'm pretty sure the stuffed animals will go to someone who will need them," she says.

The next thing Magaly has to do is write a paper on the project and its success.