{"id":22279,"date":"2018-11-22T10:33:48","date_gmt":"2018-11-22T15:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22279"},"modified":"2018-11-22T10:33:48","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T15:33:48","slug":"kerry-bear-brings-warm-and-fuzzy-fundraising-to-kerrys-place-autism-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/kerry-bear-brings-warm-and-fuzzy-fundraising-to-kerrys-place-autism-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerry Bear brings warm and fuzzy fundraising to Kerry\u2019s Place Autism Services"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can spread the warm and fuzzies across the country \u2013 while helping a great cause in the process \u2013 through the Kerry Bear Challenge.
\nLaunched this week by Kerry\u2019s Place Autism Services, the Kerry Bear Challenge throws down the gauntlet to individuals, companies and organizations to spread the love with a $30 minimum donation which will help hundreds of people across southern Ontario living on the Autism Spectrum (ASD) access the resources they need.
\nFor each donation of $30, Kerry\u2019s Place will send you \u2013 or the person of your choice anywhere across Canada \u2013 a plush \u201cKerry Bear,\u201d a cuddly teddy bear sporting a snazzy Kerry\u2019s Place t-shirt.
\n\u201cMoney raised from selling the bears goes directly to support Kerry\u2019s Place services and programs across all regions,\u201d says Kate Tansley of Kerry\u2019s Place. \u201cThis year, the price point is $30 \u2013 historically, it has been a $100 donation \u2013 and that is because we want more people to engage and enjoy the Kerry Bears. They are very squishy and very fun with their little t-shirts, so we wanted to make sure we were able to do something that would be at a more accessible price point and would allow more people to be a part of the challenge.\u201d
\nAmong the first to be a part of this year\u2019s Kerry Bear Challenge is Mayor-Elect Tom Mrakas, who received a Kerry Bear of his own on Wednesday morning from Ms. Tansley and Kerry Brown, Fundraising Assistant for Kerry\u2019s Place Autism Services.
\n\u201cDollars raised from Kerry Bears support all programs and services,\u201d Ms. Tansley said. \u201cWhether it is social groups or respite, different programs, whether that is an educational program for families, siblings, grandparents, or teachers or anybody to come in, we offer programs for people to come in and learn about ASD and we also have social skills building groups. Then, of course, we go into different age groups. We\u2019ve got a camp. Our young adults programming also would have the social skills building, the resume writing, the jobs training, and helping people integrate into the community so they can become fully committed members of the community, participating in ways that are comfortable for them. It is also educating people who would be hiring those folks so they know how to best interact with somebody with ASD in the workplace.\u201d
\nThe Kerry Bear initiative typically comes out twice a year, first in World Autism Awareness Month and again in the holiday season. Christmas, however, is the main event and a time when Kerry\u2019s Place encourages companies and groups to get in on the act and help make a difference.
\n\u201cPeople in the office could have a little breakfast bar, everybody could bring in a little buffet-style dish and contribute a certain amount of money to share lunch together,\u201d said Ms. Tansley. \u201cIf you have a CEO or a senior manager, maybe you want to pie them in the face and everybody\u2019s raising money. Maybe you want to have, in lieu of your staff party, or you want to cut back on your holiday staff party and say, \u2018we\u2019re going to do without the holiday extravagance this year and make a donation to Kerry\u2019s Place by using some of those funds to support people with ASD.\u2019 Those are just some of the ideas people do.\u201d
\nBut, you have to act fast. If you want to receive your Kerry Bear in time for Christmas, or have it delivered to someone else across the country in time for the festive season, Ms. Tansley encourages everyone put in their donations by the middle of December, or visit Kerry\u2019s Place online to register individual fundraising events and initiatives.
\nMore information can be found at kerrysplace.org\/kerrybears.
\n\u201cI am honoured to be presented with a Kerry Bear,\u201d said Mayor-Elect Mrakas. \u201cI am looking forward to continuing the tradition of having the bear in the Mayor\u2019s office and I think the work Kerry\u2019s Place does is extraordinary for our community. I think that we\u2019re all proud that they reside here in the Town of Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can spread the warm and fuzzies across the country \u2013 while helping a great cause in the process \u2013 through the Kerry Bear Challenge.
\nLaunched this week by Kerry\u2019s Place Autism Services, the Kerry Bear Challenge throws down the gauntlet to individuals, companies and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/2018-11-22-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Nl","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 13:09:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}