A family task years in the making came to fruition as 50 hand-sewn teddy bears were donated to Griffith's ambulance station, providing much-needed toys to provide for kids in emergency situations.
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Anne Sinclair and her mother Dorothea Bond recently finished creating over 50 teddy bears, originally intended to go to hospitals, after several years and a brief hiatus.
Ms Sinclair explained what happened.
"My mother Dorothea had a friend who was knitting little bears, they were being donated to the hospital so she decided she would knit some. They got put aside for a while, she got a bit sick but she rediscovered them."
Ms Sinclair explained that the initial sewing took place a few years ago, and that she volunteered to finish the bears off as the task had grown a bit too daunting.
"She's 92 now so I said I'd sew them up and do the faces... she was quite tickled pink when I said I'd sew them all up ... When I originally told Mum, I didn't realise how many there were," Ms Sinclair said.
"My sister gave me this small basket of teddy bear pieces and then she grinned and said 'and now here's the rest' and gave me this huge box."
While the bears were originally intended to be shared amongst hospitals, COVID lockdowns made that impossible so Anne Sinclair's daughter Erin suggested that the ambulances could benefit from them.
Inspector Markus Zarins from the NSW Ambulance Service said they can always benefit from more teddies to stock the ambulances.
"Essentially, they're designed to assist us in our treatment and ability to calm kids down and give them a distraction from what they're going through," he explained.
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"It's really good, which is why we encourage people to keep giving them to us. They work very well and they're not something we can exactly requisition."
He added that while they had a fairly steady supply from groups like the CWA and individuals who want to do some good, they can always use some more.
"We can never have too many of them."
Ms Sinclair said that while they'd put together about 60 teddy bears as a family, they'd donated 50 of them so as to keep a few aside for their own grandkids.
"They're only little things but the little children really benefit from them."
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