Around the World in 10 Bears : Class Teddies, Getting Carried Away, Deliver Geography Lessons From Afar

Tommy may be just a teddy bear but he’s really going places.

From Canada to South Korea and Australia to Japan, Tommy is seeing the world.

Sue DeMers, a sixth-grade teacher at Raymond Temple Elementary School in Buena Park, decided to send 10 stuffed bears on various journeys as a way to teach her class about geography, as well as other cultures.

In addition to globe-trotting Tommy, the traveling bears are Rainbow, Sugarbelle, Snowflake, Santa Claws, Cottonball, Cinnamon, Flowers, Sugar and Fluffy.

“We usually just get postcards from Tommy, but I recently got an e-mail from him and he was visiting a fourth-grade class in Kobe, Japan,” DeMers said. “He started off on his trip from Buena Park with a trucker, and he went to Chicago and then on to Toronto.”

Then came a note from a pilot with Ansett Australia:

“Dear Class: Just a quick note to let you know I’m having a ball. Visited Australia over the weekend. First Cairns and then Sydney, home of the 2000 Olympics. Too hot for me here. It’s over 100 degrees. Capt. Rob Wood, Flight 2803.”

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On Friday, DeMers’ class received a call from Kari Shrimpton, a flight attendant in England. “She said she had Tommy and was going to take him on a flight to Hong Kong and then pass him on to another flight attendant,” DeMers said. “She said she just wanted the kids to know he was in good hands.”

Tommy even has his own ‘teddy bear passport’ now, thanks to customs officials in Australia.

“The kids are just so thrilled with the outcome of our project,” DeMers said. “We have a giant map we’re using to track the bears’ progress. And we had filled each bear’s backpack with postcards, journals and logbooks so that people could record information.”

Pinned to each bear was a note: “Hi. I’m a bear from Miss DeMers’ sixth-grade class. I want to see the world.” The note asked the traveler to take the bear as far as he could, and to pass it on to another traveler.

Ronnie Lorigo, 11, who donated Tommy to his class for the project and chose the name because the bear was wearing a Tommy Hilfiger sweater, said he and his classmates are “psyched.”

“Heck, I didn’t know if he would even get out of California,” Ronnie said. “But now he’s traveling all over the world. I think it’s kind of funny that a bear is going to all of these places. He’s having a pretty good life for a bear. I really hope that he eventually comes back, but if he keeps traveling forever, that’s pretty cool too.”

DeMers said the last word regarding Cottonball had the bear attending a Cardinal-Steeler pro football game in Phoenix on Nov. 30. “She may have been sidelined,” the teacher quipped.

She said there hasn’t been any correspondence yet on where Cinnamon or Fluffy have ended up. But Flowers spent Christmas in Atlanta and, at last report, Sugar was on a plane from California to Maryland.

“Rainbow went to South Carolina via a friend of another teacher,” DeMers said. “Then he was given to a Swiss couple who took him to London. And then, this week, we got a postcard from Rainbow and he had been in Zurich, Switzerland.”

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Sugarbelle hasn’t been on any airplanes or attended any football games but she did hit the road--first with a trucker and now in a motor home.

The trucker sent the class a postcard from Ohio:

“Your bear was given to me in Goleta, CA by a truck driver. I am also a truck driver and your bear will be with me until I get to Shoemakerville, PA. We will stop at my home in Ohio and then on to PA. I’m very grateful that I was given a chance to do something to help out. I have driven 20 years [on] the road. James E. Counts.”

DeMers, who had read a book about a similar project that another teacher had done a few years ago, said her class’ effort has turned out even better than she had hoped for. “Previously, I was so concerned because many of the kids didn’t even know where the major cities of the world were. Now they know, and they are having fun at the same time.”

She said the students realize the bears might not ever make it back.

“I think they are fine with it,” DeMers said. “Some of these bears may travel forever.”

Indeed.

Snowflake is on her way to the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, while Santa Claws, decked out in a Santa outfit, may travel indefinitely with the National Hot Rod Assn., and at last word was beary happy soaking up sunshine in Miami.