With teddy bears, scientist sends joy to children in need
Aviva Presser
Photo by Maria Nemchuk
Bringing a smile to a child's face — particularly a child who is grappling with poverty or disease — is simply part of a day's work for Aviva Presser, a Harvard University graduate student in the ӳý's Genome Biology Program. She is the co-founder of Bears Without Borders, a charity that delivers teddy bears worldwide to chronically ill children and children orphaned by disease. Now, Presser's efforts have earned the recognition of the Harlequin More Than Words program, which will contribute $10,000 to her organization and commission a "Harlequin-style" short story inspired by her and her work.
The brainchild of Presser and her husband Erez Lieberman, Bears Without Borders was first envisioned as the couple planned their wedding day. While many brides- and grooms-to-be are consumed by ceremonial logistics, Presser and her then fiancé had more altruistic goals in mind, namely carrying the joy of their marriage beyond their own circle of family and friends.
For them, combining their fondness for stuffed animals with their concern for global health seemed a natural vehicle for spreading happiness. The couple organized a teddy bear “decorating party” at their wedding reception and, using materials donated by Build-A-Bear, their guests gussied up more than 100 stuffed bears with bows, clothes and other accessories. Then, with the help of Bruce Walker, a professor at Harvard Medical School, the director of the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and a ӳý associate member, each bear was paired with a child at the Edendale Hospital Pediatric Ward and the Hillcrest AIDS Center Orphanage in Marianhill, South Africa.
Image courtesy of Bears Without Borders
The undertaking attracted the attention of Harlequin, an enterprise that is well known for its romance novels. In addition to publishing light-hearted love stories, Harlequin also presents a yearly "More Than Words" award to women who make notable contributions to their community. This year, Presser will be one of five women to receive the award, which honors her work with Bears Without Borders. Harlequin will donate $10,000 to Bears Without Borders and, in addition, will sponsor a best-selling author to write a short story based on Presser's life and her charity. Similar stories will be composed for the other awardees and compiled in a book that Harlequin plans to publish.
After its initial success, Bears Without Borders has expanded its efforts. Massachusetts General Hospital medical personnel, who travel abroad for medical training, now distribute hundreds of teddy bears to children in foreign countries, including Haiti, India and South Africa. And teddy bears are not the only items that the charity distributes; it also provides books to needy children as well as goats to poverty-stricken families in Rwanda. Thus, while Presser's wedding day is now a happy memory, its spirit lives on in the Bears Without Borders missions.
