Holiday bears help deployed troops reach local children with gift of love Published Dec. 17, 2008 By Danielle Gregory Tinker Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla., -- During the holidays, special programs abound and people have various opportunities to get involved by helping others. One group of Tinker volunteers is helping spread holiday cheer overseas. The Tinker parachute fabric workers of 552nd Component Maintenance Group in Bldg. 229 are giving Christmas presents to deployed troops that could at the least brighten an Iraqi child's day, and at best save a life. The group decided their Christmas project would be helping out the HUGS program, a group that makes and sends items to the military in the Middle East. They decided to make teddy bears to send to deployed troops. The small, simply designed bears are tiny enough to fit in a pocket. They are stuffed and stitched by the volunteers and then shipped to deployed servicemen and women. Instead of decorating their tents or work areas with the bears, stories are coming back of troops handing out the bears to children in their deployed locations "Soldiers like to fill their pockets with (teddy bears) and then hand them out to the local children," said fabric worker Jan Culwell. The HUGS program believes that by reaching out to the children through a simple gift, they are actually helping to build goodwill and may even save the lives of some troops on the ground there by grateful children willing to warn them of danger, Ms. Culwell said. The HUGS group provided them with the pattern of the bear. Ms. Culwell said they used different types of material for the bears and drew faces on them, and some workers took them home for their children to draw faces on. "We even stapled notes to them that said from the children of America to the children of Iraq. It says it in English and below translates to Arabic. I told my children this is a project to give teddy bears to children in Iraq and that the bears have saved lives," said David Weiss, parachute shop supervisor. This is the first time the volunteers have helped this organization. They only had one month to make more than 150 bears and did it during their spare time. "This was something that really bonded those of us that donated our free time to work on them," said Ms. Culwell. Ms. Culwell said it is wonderful for children to see the love of others through a teddy bear.