Portia Williams | Daily Times
Mary Arnzen, Executive Director of the Ohio River Valley Red Cross receives stuffed teddy bears from members of the Happy Campers Cloverbuds.
PORTIA WILLIAMS
PDT Staff Writer
WHEELERSBURG — The youth members of The Happy Campers Cloverbuds club, willingly placed one teddy bear at a time into the arms of Mary Arnzen, the Executive Director of The Ohio Valley Chapter of the the American Red Cross at the Porter Township Community Park on Tuesday. Accompanied by their advisors, Melissa Cron and Laryssa Grashel, members of the Happy Campers Cloverbuds organization donated brand new stuffed teddy bears to the Red Cross.
Arnzen expressed gratitude to the Happy Campers for their generosity.
“You guys are really helping, and we appreciate that. And now you will make some kid very happy if they lose everything. Thank you so very much for sharing,” Arnzen told the group.
The Happy Campers Cloverbuds Club was established in 2009 and is composed of girls and boys ages 5-8, and consists of kids from Minford, and other surrounding local school districts.
“We take kids ages 5-8 who are too young to actually to be in 4-H, so we do community service events, each club has to have one, so we picked the Red Cross to donate the teddy bears,” Melissa Cron, one of the Happy advisers said.
Each child appeared to be happy for giving the bears, which was apparent by the smiles that some of them revealed afterwards.
“It made me feel good to give the bear. I think that the kids will love it, and will have something else to sleep with,” said Mychal Cron, member of the Happy Campers, a second grader at Minford Elementary, and the daughter of Melissa and Cron.
Mary Arnzen spoke to the group about the purpose for Red Cross’s use of the bears, which is to give the bears to children of families who have been devastated by house fires. Arnzen also spoke to the group of youth and their parents about the importance of being prepared for any type of disasters, by having emergency kits already in place in their homes, and distributed pamphlets with specific instructions about this issue.
Portia Williams may be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 234 or portiawilliams@heartlandpublications.com
Can you keep track of the children when they are in a background of grass of the same color as their celebration T-shirts?
I noticed that Highway and Roadway workers have gone from construction orange to that Kind of Green?