Once a year, stuffed animals take flight inside an arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania, flying through the air in a cavalcade of color creating ‘sweet cuddly mayhem’ on the ice.
For a quarter century, the Hershey Bears, a minor league team in the American Hockey League, has been hosting the epic Teddy Bear Toss game for charity.
In the annual event, as soon as the home team scores its first goal, excited fans launch thousands of stuffed animals onto the ice—a chaos of colorful creatures, big and small, raining down from the stadium seats above the players.
Play stops, so all those stuffed animals can be collected and later donated to children in need throughout central Pennsylvania. For nearly an hour, workers corral thousands of plush toys scattered across the ice.
Last year, the Hershey Bears set a world record by collecting 102,343 stuffed animals during the Teddy Bear Toss. On Sunday, the team held its latest ceremony, during which Bears defenseman Louie Belpedio scored just three minutes into the game, to unleash an aerial assault featuring 81,796 donated stuffed animals.
“He scores!” the Bears announcer said on the video broadcast. “Sweet cuddly mayhem! It’s a sky full of stuffies! It’s the Teddy Bear Toss magic in Hershey.”
Since its inception in 2001, the Teddy Bear Toss has provided almost 650,000 stuffed animals to less fortunate kids and families. And one local teenager made it her mission to help maintain the supply of plushies and all the joy they provide.
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Gabby Kerchner, a high school junior in nearby Mechanicsburg, and has been a long-time season ticket holder for the Hershey Bears. After witnessing the Teddy Bear Toss the first time, she was so inspired that she worked with her family to create the nonprofit Gabby’s Acts of Kindness to solicit donations for her favorite hockey team’s Teddy Bear Toss every year.
“I think about it every day when I wake up. It’s just so incredible,” Gabby recently told WMPT News–Fox 43. “I realize how much more (those stuffed animals on the ice) mean. That’s why I’m on the edge of my seat during the game. It’s just insane and always an insane number.”
Gabby’s group has helped collect more than 125,000 stuffed animals since it was first created—and thousands of her latest contributions hit the ice on Sunday.
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“I definitely think a lot of people don’t really understand what that (Teddy Bear Toss) number means. All the places that it goes puts a tear in my eye,” Gabby said.
Kids across central Pennsylvania got unexpected cuddles from their new plushie friends this week. Many of the fluffy toys were distributed to students at the nearby Milton Hershey School. Others were sent to neighboring schools, children’s hospitals, and military families throughout the area.
And Gabby got another dose of satisfaction knowing she played a small part in it.
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“Throw kindness around like confetti,” Gabby said. “You never know what a person’s going through… Do something good and you’ll get it right back.”
TOSS THIS ONTO SOCIAL MEDIA to Keep the Cuddly Kindness Growing…