Birthday Girls Earn a Custom-made Bear & Give to Charity in Visiting Boyertown's Businesses

by Jane Stahl

Kim Frain, devoted grandmother, fashioned six,  6" felt bears to commemorate her granddaughters' recent birthdays as part of a learning experience. She and the girls visited a handful of Boyertown's businesses to locate the bears and learn more about their community and those businesses. 

Each girl started with a “B” Boyertown bear. Following clues to the bears' locations, their goal was to gather their bear friends that were living in a few of Boyertown's businesses. They found a bear wearing a cupcake on his belly in Nae Nae’s Cakery,  another with two red and white candy sticks in the Peppermint Stick Candy Store. They found an adorable puppy-faced bear in Zimmer’s Pet Store, and  a bear sporting a paint palette and paint brush at Studio B Art Gallery. 

At each business they were to answer questions and were rewarded with a few dollars at each location for answering the question or challenge correctly.  After answering the question, they earned their bear!

For their visit to Studio B the girls were required to identify their favorite piece of art and explain why they liked it. The girls chose art work that featured flowers but their choices were in totally different mediums.

Charlie Frain--top photo--chose Sunny Finley's clay tile wall hanging featuring roses as her favorite.

Norah Frain--bottom photo--chose an assemblage, "Julio's Garden," co-created by Rhonda Counts and Julio Cesar Cepeda. 

After their visits to the businesses "on tour,"  they chose their favorite bears to keep and donated the other bears to the Stellar House Give & Take Art Box. They then went back and shopped at some of the stores-showing that small businesses are important along with giving back to your community with their bear donations. Ending their trek, the girls proceeded to the Grill Shop, Toss of the Town, and Stellar House.

Kim Frain's craftsmanship always amazes me. Beyond that, I smiled that there was a bit of a "lesson plan" involved in the experience she'd planned. It's only appropriate since Kim served as the administrative assistant to Boyertown Senior High's principals for 30+ years. The desire to foster learning apparently rubbed off over those many years spent with educators!

More News from Boyertown

• May 9: One-a-Day: Flowers--Nature's Eye Candy UGH! Dandelions--the bane of pristine lawns and their devoted caretakers!
• Staring into Space: Not Worth the Stigma Craig Bennett reminds us that staring into space is not a sign of a lazy mind, but a necessary ingredient for creativity.