The Berlin community responded with 103 stuffed animals for Operation Snuggle Newtown at the three drop-off spots in town.
Dirty Dog, Mickey Finns and Good Cause Gifts all hosted drop-off sports for Berlin Patch.
Mickey Finns got a large batch from a student (story on him upcoming) whose mom works at the store. He walked around his college cafeteria and asked fellow students to forego eating lunch that day and donate the money to Operation Snuggle Newtown. From that money he bought dozens of bears.
Local Editor Bob Mayer and one of his daughters Rianne took all of the stuffed animals to Connecticut Rental Center to drop off and there were literally hundreds of bears ready to go.
Lynn Samperi, who lives in Wallingford but who was so moved by the sadness enveloping Newtown in the wake of the shootings that she knew she had to take action. And so she and her husband are bringing Christmas to Newtown on Saturday with their close friends Santa and Mrs. Claus.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. We are proud and humbled to be part of these very special communities.
We are bringing a large number of bears to Samperi on Friday and she will transport them to Newtown for the Saturday Christmas party, to be given out to all attendees. We decided to do it this way because Newtown is inundated with visitors right now, ranging from the national media to therapy dog handlers to people who just wanted to bring some flowers. They don’t need more people.
Connecticut Rental Center in Middletown is driving the bears to Samperi for us, free of charge. We will have a story on Patch Friday about that delivery.
