The Teddies for Loving Care Appeal (TLC) in Cheshire has been operating since 2004 and on average Cheshire Freemasons donate 12,000 teddies each year to Cheshire hospitals.

Accident & Emergency Doctor Suzy Waring recent sent a letter of thanks which sums up the objectives of TLC and Suzy was happy for this to be shared

I am one of the doctors from A+E at The Countess of Chester Hospital. Many of our patients are children and we see a multitude of conditions – some minor, some major and everything in between. For as long as I have worked in Countess of Chester Hospital, there have been teddy bears available for us to give to the children who present to the department. These bears are lovely and very good quality. They come in a variety of colours and are kindly donated to the department by Cheshire Freemasons. Having these bears is so helpful. Not only do the children love them but they help massively in terms of building rapport with the children, who are quite often very afraid of the situation. The parents love them too! Each child is allowed to pick the colour of the bear they wish, and they are allowed to keep them to take home. The teddy bears have such a positive effect on the children. It is so nice to see the children smile when they are given a bear. Earlier on in the year I did a session with some reception children in a local school. I set the session up to be a pretend teddy bear hospital. There were 56 children and Cheshire Freemasons kindly donated 56 bears – so each child had their own bear to use and take home. I took some bandages and plasters along, and the children pretended be doctors. I showed them how to examine the bears as if they were a real patient with a head injury and the kids then put plasters and bandages on their bears. The children and teachers loved it. At the start of the session I asked the children if any of them wanted to become doctors when they grew up… 4 of them raised their hands. At the end I asked again, and all 56 children raised their hands! Thank you to the freemasons for their generosity in supplying the bears. They always go down really well and are a lovely part of the service we provide in A+E and in the education of children. And maybe one day we will be thanking the bears for creating “tomorrow’s doctors”.