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Unity Centre members send out love through Christmas project
By LINDA M. LINONIS
LIBERTY
Members of Unity Centre for Spiritual Living can barely contain their joy about an ongoing Christmas project.
Love a Bear, Share a Bear means just that.
Lynda Couch of Warren, project coordinator, said the collection of new stuffed animals, mainly bears, began in early November.
The bears are placed in pews, and during Sunday services they are hugged and loved.
“We want that love and caring to go with them,” Couch said.
The bears and other stuffed animals also move from pew to pew; sometimes a bear has the company of a giraffe or lion.
The collection ends Sunday at the church at 1226 Naylor Lloyd Road. Then Couch and Karen Thomas of Warren, who assists, will put a cuddly stuffed animal with each set of Giving Tree gifts.
Members have taken Giving Tree tags with names of 36 children and bought Christmas gifts for them.
Couch said the gifts and stuffed animals will go to underprivileged children who were signed up through Niles Community Services. Recipients range in age from babies to 15-year-olds.
Couch, a Unity member for 32 years, explained the Joyful Jesters, a clown ministry at Unity, formed in 1991 and started the project; she was involved in the ministry. She said the stuffed animals went to shut-ins, children in hospitals and nursing homes. When the clown ministry became inactive, church members wanted to continue the project. It was decided to work through Niles Community Services.
Couch said if extra stuffed animals are collected, she takes them to Liberty police and fire departments.
“If children are involved in a traumatic event, like an accident, they can have a bear to hold onto. It might help make them feel secure,” she said.
Thomas added, “In a crisis, children are comforted by hugging something warm and cuddly.”
Other stuffed animals are given to shut-ins.
“We want to send out love and peace from the church,” Couch said.
The women said the project is well-supported because helping someone in need also makes the giver feel good.
“Everyone in the church loves this project.”
The two women smiled and laughed as they told how members seek out different stuffed animals in the pews.
“Everyone has their ‘spiritual address’ in church, sitting in the same pew from week to week,” Thomas said.
Now, they want a bear or other stuffed animal to share that “address.” But if “their spot” is occupied, members are glad to “grin and bear it” because they have a cuddly companion in another pew with them.
“We never have a bear sitting by itself,” added Thomas, a Unity member of five years.
The donated bears are in different colors, textures and have different faces and demeanors. But they share being cuddly and there’s a certain comfort felt when holding one.
The bears are joined by other stuffed animals including a moose, elephant, giraffe, monkey and even a unicorn.