Giving the gift of comfort
Alyssa Fitzmorris had a special friend when she was in the hospital as a teenager.
Fitzmorris, who has a rare blood disorder, spent three years on and off in the IWK Health Centre for treatments from the time she was 14 until she was about 18. During one of her first hospital stays, she got a yellow stuffed gorilla.
“It was a small act of kindness,” she says. “It gets lonely and boring and you miss the comforts of home a lot. Teddy bears, a blanket — anything not from the hospital brings a lot of comfort.”
Fitzmorris also made a couple of other friends at the IWK
Health Centre. There was Erin, who was a teenager, too. She and Fitzmorris shared a lot of laughs and frustration together. And then there was Hugo, a young boy who, Fitzmorris says, would
“bring joy just being around him.”
Both Erin and Hugo had childhood cancers and passed away from the disease, but Fitzmorris never forgot them.
In 2014, several years later after her hospital stay, Fitzmorris wanted to find a way to give back to other children in the hospital. She remembered that yellow gorilla, so she started making teddy bears with flannel fabric and sewing supplies she got through fundraising and donations. She made 45 teddy bears.
“It was more than I bargained for,” she remembers.
She brought the flannel bears to 6 Link, the oncology/hematology/nephrology floor at the IWK Health Centre, where she spent her time when in the hospital as a teenager.
Eventually, Fitzmorris, who’s now 26, started the Teddy Wishes Society and started getting donations of new teddy bears or cash. The Child Life office at the IWK Health Centre accepts the donation of bears every year and passes them out to children in the hospital. All the donations of bears must be new to prevent the spread of germs. Since 2014, Fitzmorris has donated about
600 new teddy bears to children in hospitals.
Fitzmorris honours the memory of Erin and Hugo by buying stuffed toys they’d like. She always has orange tabby cats, which were Erin’s favourite, and stuffed elephants, which Hugo loved most.
“[Erin and Hugo] were the motivation to keep it going,” Fitzmorris says.
Fitzmorris has big plans for the Teddy Wishes Society. She started the Facebook group a year ago to reach more people. Over the past year, she’s been donating new finger puppets to the Twin Oaks Memorial Hospital in Musquodoboit Harbour.
She also has a contact at Ronald Mcdonald House Atlantic who calls her when they need new bears. Fitzmorris and the society handed out 50 new bears at the Ronald Mcdonald House PJ Walk for Kids this past June. She’s also working with the Children’s Wish Foundation to see how they can work together to share teddy bears.
“I think it lets kids know other people are thinking about them,” she says. “I think teddy bears bring a ton of comfort for kids because they did for me.”
To learn more about the
Teddy Wishes Society or to donate new stuffed toys, search for Teddy Wishes Society on Facebook.