Teddy Aid : 4-Year-Old Makes Stuffed-Animal Drive Reality

IRVINE — Geoffrey Miank spent Thursday afternoon loading his mother’s van with stuffed animals. There was a yellow parrot, a Mickey Mouse in a Santa Claus suit and a giant pink platypus. Big gray elephants and yellow monkeys mingled with mother kangaroos.

And, of course, there were dozens of black and brown teddy bears.

“I’ve never seen so many teddy bears in my whole life,” said 4-year-old Geoffrey. “I think it’s great!”

The menagerie constituted the last of the 423 stuffed animals that Miank and his mom have collected over the past week. The animals’ destination: children whose homes and prized stuffed animals burned in the Laguna Beach fire.

“I’m amazed,” said Karen Miank, Geoffrey’s mom. “People are wonderful. They really want to help. It’s children helping children.”

The inspiration for the teddy bear collection, Miank said, came the first night of the fire, as Geoffrey watched houses burning on television.

*

“He was upset by it,” she recalled. “He wanted to know if anybody was in there and I said no. Then he asked whether their teddy bears had burned. He was concerned, because he loves his teddy bear very much.

“ ‘We need to give some of our babies,’ he said. ‘Maybe my friends will help.’ ”

The next day, Karen approached the director of St. Paul’s Episcopal preschool in Tustin--which Geoffrey attends--who sent notes home with the children asking for donations of stuffed animals.

Later, a similar announcement went out at St. Jeanne deLestonack, a Tustin elementary school attended by Geoffrey’s 11-year-old brother, Edward.

The results were astounding, Miank said. Teddy bears and other stuffed animals poured into the Mianks’ living room by the hundreds. There were Winnie the Poohs, bears in pajamas and fluffy white teddy bears. Crouching tigers came in cardboard boxes along with reclining raccoons.

Each animal, Karen said, was carefully affixed with a label bearing the giver’s name. “This bear was loved by Stephanie,” one read, “and I care about You.”

*

Miank and Geoffrey delivered the animals to a variety of agencies serving fire victims in daily runs to Laguna Beach in the family van. These included the county mental health center, two local churches and the Episcopal Service Alliance.

“When you lose everything, you need something to be close to,” said Jan Scherer, a secretary at the Episcopal alliance. “Some of the children got out so fast that they weren’t able to save their favorite stuffed animals.” The animals “become like people” to the children, she said.

According to Miank, the effort has helped her son overcome his initial fear that the fire would invade his own home.

But Geoffrey has a much simpler explanation for why he collected the stuffed animals.

“It feels great,” he said, surrounded by a sea of teddy bears in the back seat of his mother’s van on Thursday. “The kids are going to love these, because they don’t have anything else to hold.”