1st Teddy Chair, Charity Auction, and a few more Teddy Packages Going Out

I found the chair below at the thrift store and refinished it. I built the seat and did an ink jet transfer to get the image of teddy that my brother Austin drew on to the chair. It turned out really nice. I put the chair in Kootenai Environmental Alliance auction. It went for 250 bucks. Not too bad. I hope to build more pieces like this and rather than give them away have the proceeds go to funding, and sending out Teddy packages. 250 dollars would be like 20 big teddy packages built and mailed or probably 80 small teddy packages. It was for a good cause and hopefully I can build a few more chairs or pieces of furniture. I feel people might buy them if they know there money is going to be the spark to initiate clean-ups around the world.

My parents just went on a trip and did a small clean-up in Canada so officially I have 3 states, and 3 countries with documented Teddy Clean-ups. I had a few people send me messages from other countries and so as soon as I can get the Teddy packages out, I should document a few more. I have one package ready to go to Washington, DC to an old roommate and one to a person in Spain who just stumbled on to the project and wanted to be part of it. I really like the idea of putting Teddy’s Image as free and open source so when people contact me they can print a piece of paper and go do a clean-up. That would be a great way for people to do Teddy Clean-ups with out putting out a bunch of resources. Then the flags I am making I can try and sell for 10 bucks or something.

I also went to Tubbs Hill to do my own Teddy clean-up. I went there last week as well. It is the local hiking trail that leaves from downtown and something that every tourist who comes to town strolls around. If you are up on the trail it looks clean and you are close to nature. If you actually go walk down by the beach and in the coves there is so much trash. In two weeks I have not been able to haul it out. I found a large tire, old ice chest and filled a large trash bag. That was all that I could carry and I hiked it all out about 1.5 miles. My arms were pretty dead afterwards because it was very heavy. I hauled the tire up from the beach and set it by the trail to rest. I watched to see if any passerbys would try and take it out. No takers in the 20 or 30 minutes that I was resting. Really that is one of the main goals of the The Theodores . . .if you see something and you can do something about it, DO IT. It really is unacceptable that so much trash finds it way to wild places and eventually the ocean. I am sure most trash could avoid this fate if 1. the person who produced the trash makes sure it finds it’s way into recycling or trash and 2. more importantly if you did not produce the trash and see some do not walk by it but rather bend over and pick it up.

I finished about 50 new teddy flags and patches. Excited to get them in the hands of people who want to support the project.