So I have not been very good about providing updates on The Theodores through the blog. I hope to be better in the future. I really just wanted to say thank you to all the people to have been involved up to this point. I really would not be anywhere with out all the help and support. Ali Koski for use of her shop and always helping me pull off great ideas. The big flags she has created I cannot wait to get into circulation. My family for always being supportive. My brother, Austin did the original Teddy design, my sister Kayla and her husband Cyrus gave me my first large donation of 500 bucks. My mother has probably completed nearly a fourth of the clean-ups! She challenged her self to do 60 clean-ups for her 60th birthday. She also has helped me start the Etsy shop. Check out what we got going on under the shop on the website. Great Christmas gift ideas! Sera, Greg and staff at Gravis Tech for building the website and for continually helping me to grow The Theodores. Robert and Christopher have now submitted numerous teddys picking up thousands of pounds of trash. I really appreciate everyone who has followed the project and done a clean-up. And most importantly my wife for always listening to my endless ramblings.

Sometimes I feel like I have not gotten very much accomplished with the project or at least not as much as I would have liked. This is because anyone who knows me knows I am a bit of a dreamer. I also am not very good at being satisfied or as Asa my wife says living in the moment. I am always thinking about the next clean-up or partnership and I know I possess a determination that many do not. It is this determination that will build The Theodores. Sometimes it feels that it is not going as fast as I would like it to but then I stop and go through old pictures and videos and realize that as a group we have gotten quite a few clean-ups completed. 427 Clean-ups by 964 participants is not too shabby....plus I think the numbers are a bit higher because not everyone is posting through the website yet. The other thing I often think about is, that if it was easy it would not be worth doing. If you could simply hand a person a flag and have them start doing clean-ups everyday boom problem solved. It is not going to happen overnight and if it were easy to do then it would probably already be happening. I don't know exactly how to grow The Theodores into a powerful force of change other than continually working on the project and coming up with fun and new ideas.
I thought I would share some of my ideas or things we are working on.

1. Education Page on the website -- A place teachers can go to access and leave lesson plans. Hopefully this will expand our educational reach and inspire teachers to implement The Theodores in their classrooms.

2. Big Flag Project -- I have 10 big flags that will be dropped in schools around the world. The ideas is that after doing a clean-up the school signs the flag with their trash total and passes it on to challenge a school of their choice. Post Falls High School was the first pilot. Mr. Mahoney had his kids clean-up over 2,000 pounds of trash in May before school let out. They have passed the torch to Lake City High in CDA, Idaho.

3. The online shop is starting to sell gear. Hopefully this will help expand our brand renegotiation.

4. I moved to Northern Sweden with my family so still working on being able to set-up and print here. I have a project I have been kicking around called Teddy Statue Project. I thought it would be neat to drop flags on statues around the city with note to complete a teddy clean-up, take a picture of clean-up and post to the website. Then and most importantly be sure to make sure the flag finds its way to a new statue somewhere in the world.

5. Asa and I still have 5 acres in Plummer, Idaho that would be a cool home base for The Theodores and a sustainability center. The land is paid off now just need to find some time and resources to start construction.

6. Working with Wallace High School screen printing class to help start printing flags. I made contact with their teacher right before moving to Sweden. I really hope this relationship can take off but might prove challenging to start because of living on opposite continents.

Well that is enough to keep me busy for awhile. Thanks again for all the support. If you have ideas or just want to get in touch I love hearing from people. Please keep showing us How You Teddy! And hopefully we can continue to grow this project together.

Dylan with The Theodores

Check out these lesson plans and open sources materials for use in classrooms around the world. Please use the ideas freely. If you do use these materials please document in some way with pictures, videos, blog article, etc and post it to the site. Also, we love it when teachers create new lesson plans. If you have an idea or something you created for you classroom please share it with us at teddyrtuesdays@gmail.com We would love to get at least one lesson plan for every age group posted here.

Education is the real agent of change. Thank you for introducing our educational materials in your classrooms and teaching students how to be positive agents of change.

Sincerely,

The Theodores