CLEVELAND — Students in the Cleveland State Community College Early Childhood Education Family Dynamics class at the McMinn Center for Higher Education in Athens wanted to do something to support children at The Covenant Christian School in Nashville, where an assailant shot and killed three children and three adults last month.
Students decided to make teddy bears, according to a news release.
Taylor Conti, a student who sews small teddy bears in her free time, volunteered to make 50 teddy bears. She sewed the material and her classmates met on their own time to stuff and finish the bears with an orange ribbon, the color representing gun violence against children. A note was attached to each bear with the message: "We care about you, and you are not alone." The teddy bears were sent to Nashville and will go to the victims' families and the classrooms where students were lost.
"The hearts of the students can be felt throughout this whole project. They worked together, listened to each other and came together during their free time to complete this," Winona Christiansen, Cleveland State Early Childhood Education instructor, said in the news release. "They give me hope for the next generation of students, knowing they will be in the early childhood classroom."
Andrea Byerly
Cleveland State Community College