Teens make hundreds of teddy bears to help scoliosis patients

IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) - Two teenagers from Illinois raised thousands of dollars for a gift for patients at the children’s hospital in Iowa City.

Meredith Secymore and Addy Blade were able to collect more than $3,500 to handmake nearly 300 teddy bears for scoliosis patients at the University of Iowa Health Care’s Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

The girls live in Illinois but came to Iowa City for scoliosis treatment. Both were told to wear a back brace to improve their condition. Some people with scoliosis need to wear a brace for as many as 16 hours a day.

A study by the National Library of Medicine says nearly 300,000 children live with scoliosis around the world.

Despite the brace, both girls stay busy by playing sports year-round.

“It kind of affected how you played sometimes ‘cause when your back hurts, it’s hard to stay the same as everyone else,” Secymore said.

They learned about a special kind of teddy bear given out to people with scoliosis patients. These aren’t normal teddy bears, instead they’re calling “Higgy Bears.” “Higgy Bears” are teddy bears wearing a back brace.

“It was kind of nice to know that there’s a lot more people out there with scoliosis,” Blade said, after she learned about the Higgy Bears.

To share that feeling, the girls raised funds to build as many Higgy Bears as possible. In a GoFundMe, they originally shot to collect $1,000, instead, they tripled their goal.

The girls then spent four hours over a day to build 281 Higgy Bears.

“Hopefully they will know that they are not alone. And there’s always someone else out there,” Blade said.