Comfort in the Hardest Moments: Why the Lions’ CareBear Program Needs You
Every day I’m at the hospital, I watch terrified children go from shaking and crying to breathing again — sometimes almost rescued — by a simple stuffed toy from the Fort Bragg Lions Club’s Comfort CareBear Program. The change is immediate and unmistakable. And it’s not just heartwarming; it’s science. Studies show that giving a child a soft toy during a painful or frightening ER visit can measurably reduce long‑term trauma. For very little money, this program delivers an outsized, medically proven benefit to some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
In the ER, the moments are small but powerful: a child about to get a shot, screaming and shaking, until a smiling toy elephant in a top hat appears. Their face softens. They breathe. Often, that brief window of calm is just long enough for the nurse to do what needs to be done. The fear may return, but it’s rarely as deep. And the toy gets a grateful hug.
This happens every single day — at 2 p.m., 2 a.m., whenever a frightened child walks through the doors. And every one of those toys comes from the Fort Bragg Lions Club. No other group is supplying them.
Why we need help now
For more than a decade, the Lions have funded this program almost entirely on our own, spending over $30,000 to keep toys flowing into the ER. But with three to four toys given out every day, the cost has grown beyond what our small club can sustain alone.
Our annual budget runs about $5,000 to $6,000. We’re looking for four to five co‑sponsors — local businesses, organizations, or individuals — who can help us continue this work. Every dime goes directly to toys. We keep overhead almost nonexistent.
Families have stepped forward with their own stories — the ones we can share.
“My son has received a few of these in the ER here in Fort Bragg… it makes his experience a little more positive… The staff’s compassion doesn’t go unnoticed. Thank you again to the Fort Bragg Lions Club!” — Shannan Nicole
“Years ago, my wife and daughter were hit head‑on… my daughter still has the teddy bear she received at the ER.” — Bea Callison
“I had to have an emergency DNC… I can vouch for the effectiveness.” — Rossi Jensen
These stories echo what children’s hospitals across the country have documented: comfort toys lower panic, reduce heart rate, and help protect a child’s mental health long after the ER visit is over.
Here’s one article on the healing value of comfort toys:
Can Plush Toys Help Deal With Loss and Trauma
And here is a National Institutes of Health study on how and why these programs work:
For just a few dollars each, these toys deliver something priceless: a medically proven reduction in trauma for children facing some of the worst moments of their young lives. A tiny cost. A huge impact.
That’s why we’re asking you directly: will you join the Fort Bragg Lions as a co‑sponsor and help keep this program alive? Your support puts a comfort toy into the hands of a terrified child at the exact moment they need it most — and the difference it makes is real, immediate, and lasting.
Shannan Nicole offered this testimonial to my request online:
“My son has received a few of these in the ER here in Fort Bragg and let me tell you just how much it makes his experience a little more positive! Can’t say enough about how thoughtful the nurses and even security guards can be when I’ve brought my son in for care and they’ve always come back with a surprise stuffy for him. The staff’s compassion doesn’t go unnoticed. Thank you and thank you again to the Fort Bragg Lions Club!”
Scientific studies — and the experience of Children’s Hospitals across the country — show that programs like this are not just fun; they are therapy. A comfort toy given at the right moment can lower a child’s heart rate, reduce panic, and measurably decrease the risk of long‑term trauma after a frightening ER visit. That small stuffed animal isn’t a distraction. It’s an evidence‑based intervention that helps protect a child’s mental health for years to come.
Personal testimonies often speak louder than science, but we can’t share the ones we see inside the ER. Even describing those encounters without names would violate privacy and could cross into HIPAA territory. So we asked the community for stories instead. MendocinoCoast.news readers responded with their own experiences — and these are the testimonials we can share. I did not witness any of them while working at the hospital.
“Years ago, my wife and daughter were hit head on by a tourist going through Abalobadiah over the double yellow line and my daughter still has the teddy bear she received at the ER. Thank you for all you Lions do!,” said Bea Callison on Facebook.
The Lions Club needs help with the Care Bears. We have spent more than $30,000 of our very hard-earned money on providing toys to the program over 10 years. We are asking for support. Most people at the hospital and most of the parents and kids who get the toys don’t know the Lions Club does this. Yet everybody knows the good it does.
The Lions do a lot of great things. We cook Christmas Eve and all day Christmas day to provide first class dinners to seniors. The Lions Club will host the Carnival by the Sea July 30-Aug 2 this year. Next, there is the Haunted House of Horrors on Halloween weekends and more.
Don’t wait to help support the CareBear Program. Email frankhartzell@gmail.com and we will make you a sponsor of the Comfort CareBear Program. We can include your name in a follow‑up article and on our posters — or you can remain anonymous if you prefer. You can also come and hear about the program. . Or better, you can come to our August meeting, where new president Clay Hummell will introduce you to all the Lions Programs for the year. The Lions meet for dinner the second Wednesday of every month at 6:30 pm. Please call 961-1727 to tell us you will be joining us!
The Lions have never wanted to brag. But toys are expensive, and we now need co‑sponsors to keep the Comfort CareBear Program going. We’re giving out three to four stuffed animals a day, and we can’t continue to do that without some recognition or financial help. We’re prepared to run ads crediting our sponsors. One major sponsor or several smaller ones would make all the difference. Every dime goes directly into the Lions’ toy program.
“I had to have an emergency DNC when I was about 30 and I was so panicked that they gave me a stuffy. I can vouch for the effectiveness, said local friend Rossi Jensen.
We hope to keep an annual budget of about $5,000 to $6,000 and are looking for four to five co‑sponsors to help carry it forward. The Lions will keep contributing, but the cost has grown beyond what our small club can manage alone. For more than a decade, every dollar we’ve raised — more than $20,000 — has gone straight into the hands of frightened children who needed something soft to hold. If you’d like to be part of that quiet, steady kindness, come meet the Lions at our free barbecue on June 29; the flier is attached. You can also reach Frank and Linda at 707‑964‑6174 or frankhartzell@gmail.com. They love this program and stretch every dollar into the best toys we can buy. Our overhead stays almost nonexistent so the comfort goes exactly where it’s needed. And if you ask anyone in the ER — nurses, doctors, housekeepers, navigators, techs, maintenance staff, or security — they’ll tell you about the moments when a small stuffed animal changed the whole room.
Toys sometimes go to lonely elders or mentally ill adults as well — especially those frightened by the early stages of dementia, when a small comfort can make a real difference. The Lions also purchase large‑print crossword books from the dollar store, and we donate many books to the hospital, all selected by former bookstore owner Frank to ensure they’re appropriate for the ER and patient needs.
We also provide used books to adults — which we sanitize before giving — but we never give out used toys. And we never donate toys for the hospital to hand out with detachable eyes or other small parts. Most modern stuffed animals don’t have these, but cheap imports do and a loose piece can send an infant right back to the ER. If you’d like to support this program, we will take your small donation and partner it with other donations we receive for CareBears, making sure every contribution goes toward safe, appropriate toys. We use a variety of very large toys that absolutely thrill some kids to the point of forgetting all their troubles — but those same toys can scare others, who might prefer a small one or even one without a face. The right toy at the right moment matters.
We’ve put years into this program and we want it to continue. I’ve rarely seen something so simple bring so much healing to toddlers and kids. The emergency room is part thrill and part horror to a child — magical lights, rushing staff, shiny equipment, beeping monitors — until suddenly all that attention turns onto them. Then a smiling whale comes to the rescue. Working around the ER, I’ve been astonished by how many kids come through those doors. Before I worked here, I assumed the ER was mostly for old people like me. Turns out plenty of kids do the same foolish things I did. I once got a treble hook stuck in my hand while fishing and tried to cut it out with my pocket knife so I could keep fishing. At the ER — 30 miles away — the doctor showed me the trick for releasing a barb if I were ever that stupid again. We see kids who fall out of trees, off bikes, or try to fly with an umbrella (another one I tried, and hid the bruises from my parents). Some, sadly, don’t survive childhood, but most do — thanks to excellent ER care and a few hard‑earned lessons. And a toy can make a real difference, even for an older kid. Here’s another good article about comfort toys, though we don’t recommend buying the expensive ones they list. We get the exact same toys for $5 each — and others for just $1 or $2.
For those who just want to donate, we’ve set up an easy way to do that — and have it go directly to the Lions Club as a charitable, tax‑deductible contribution. Every dime will go to buying toys for the Comfort CareBear Program, nothing else. Be sure to tag your donation “CareBear Program,” or talk to any Lions Club member, and we will make sure your contribution is partnered with others so we can purchase safe, appropriate stuffed toys that truly make a difference.
https://www.fortbragglionsclub.org
The toys are all purchased new and handled as little as possible. We place them directly into containers and leave them there until they’re given out. For these photos, we handled them with gloves. We do not buy the cheapest toys available — most of our stuffed animals cost $3 to $5 each, chosen for safety and durability. Nurses, access coordinators, CNAs, and sometimes doctors and security guards all have an eye for what might help a child in distress. Many, being parents themselves, can tell when a large toy will be perfect — or when a child would be better comforted by a smaller one, or even one without a face. The right choice matters, and our staff helps guide it every day.
Toys are given out in children’s hospitals everywhere and are now widely recognized by medical professionals as essential tools for calming and comforting young patients. Here is an article from a major children’s hospital about the value of programs like this — programs that didn’t exist here until the Lions Club brought the Comfort CareBear Program to the ER 15 years ago.
Here is what the Children’s Hospitals of Wisconsin posted about the healing value of toys for kids.
“Emergency situations are traumatizing for adults, but the impact that they have on children can carry lifelong implications as they are still growing and developing. Situations where trauma is present can shape children’s thoughts on first responders, Emergency Medical Technicians, ambulances and more,” the story said. It goes on to describe how the program makes a difference in the health and trauma load of kids. The article is below:
Why toys help kids so much in the ER- from Children’s Hospital
We cannot photograph any of this due to common decency, common sense, privacy and HIPAA. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act takes this one step further. I cannot describe any particular situation I have seen where these toys really thrilled or healed a scared kid, but suffice to say it happens all the time.
Here was our report to our fellow Lions we made earlier this year. LION Linda Hartzell handles this part:
“In 2025, we delivered 1,505 CareBears — about 125 a month, or four every single day — reaching roughly 1,500 families in crisis. Every one of those bears was a moment of comfort for a child who needed it.
Our total program cost was $6,819, including shipping and storage. But thanks to community support — $280 from the Chamber Mixer, $392 in donations, and $200 from the Hartzell family — we brought in $872 to help fund the program.
That brought our net cost down to $5,532, and our effective cost per bear to $3.67, a huge improvement from last year’s seven dollars.”
And now we have read science that shows how much good this does!
A scientific study funded by the National Institutes of Health examined the healing effects of giving toys to children in the ER. The researchers found that the program works best when it’s handled by nursing professionals who know the patient and can judge both the positive impact of a toy and the right moment to offer it. The study recommends more education for medical staff on the importance of comfort toys, along with better standardization of funding and communication. It also stresses that the decision to give a toy should never be automated — it should be made by a person, ideally a nurse. And it acknowledges the reality every ER knows: nurses already face enormous time pressures, which can make this kind of thoughtful, individualized care difficult to carry out consistently.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10084775
One bit of HIPAA humor: when we looked at a dozen hospitals that give out toys, every one of them stored the toys the same way — piled up in a back room on an unused bed, just like ours. None showed photos of children, of course. Even if a nurse brought in her own kids to pose, it could still give the impression that a patient might be photographed, and that will never happen. But we would love to hear voluntary testimonials from families. Over the years, thousands of toys have been given out, and the stories behind them are part of what keeps the Comfort CareBear Program going strong.
“My grandson has been on the receiving end of this wonderful program. Thank you Fort Bragg Lions,” said Laurel Kuvaja Hosford.
Thank you for allowing us to keep this remarkable program alive. For fifteen years, a simple stuffed toy has met children at some of the hardest moments of their young lives — and turned fear into calm, tears into breath, chaos into something they can hold. The Lions want to continue this work, but we cannot do it alone. The Lions need your help to keep the Comfort CareBear Program going, to make sure the next frightened child who walks through those ER doors is met with comfort, dignity, and a little bit of courage they can take home.
Call Frank & Linda Hartzell at 707-964-6174 or write us at frankhartzell@gmail.com
More of what the Lions are doing..
This year, we’re excited to launch a new, year‑round fundraiser: the Lions Den Escape Adventure, created in collaboration with the Kelley House Museum. This immersive experience explores the history — and mystery — of the Frolic shipwreck off the Mendocino Coast. Teams of up to five can choose 20‑, 40‑, or 60‑minute escape challenges. The Escape Room is open year‑round by reservation at 707‑961‑1727.
Our popular Haunted House — the Haunted Hall of Horrors — returns this fall on:
Friday, October 23; Saturday, October 24; Friday, October 30 from 7–10 p.m., and Saturday, October 31 from 6–10 p.m.
Recent proceeds supported the Fort Bragg Food Bank and the Mendocino Coast Children’s Fund.
We invite the entire community to join us at this year’s summer carnival:
Thursday, July 30 and Friday, July 31 from 4–10 p.m., and Saturday, August 1 and Sunday, August 2 from 12–10 p.m.
It’s a joyful end‑of‑July tradition for local families and an essential fundraiser for our service programs.
As we look ahead to another year of service, we are actively seeking new members. We need more hands and more hearts to keep these programs strong. We welcome anyone who loves this community and wants to make a difference. Join us for our monthly dinner social — held the second Wednesday of each month, with drinks at 6:30 p.m. at Lions Hall, 430 E. Redwood Avenue..
The Lions also do eye care, scholarships and the annual Easter Egg Hunt.
For questions about membership, events, or programs, contact us at fblions@mcn.org.
