Donation makes for a bear-y nice holiday for children at St. Charles Hospital

Teddy bears — 45 total, beige, most of them, with a few snow white polar bears thrown in — arrived this week at a room at Port Jefferson’s St. Charles Hospital that is used for children’s occupational therapy.

The bears appeared about two weeks ago at the Middle Country Road headquarters of the Town of Smithtown’s Senior Citizens Department, discovered by staffers when they arrived at the office.

The department accepts donations from time to time, but they tend to be checks that town staffers put toward the department’s work, which includes driving seniors to medical appointments and shopping trips, providing meals, tidying homes and doing minor household repairs.

Program director Doreen Perrino, who started her job in November, convened an informal staff meeting. During much of the COVID-19 era, staffers have had to turn away physical donations, but she wanted to see these bears put to work.

"Right now we’re open and we want to make an impact on the community and seniors, feel good about ourselves and do good for other people," she said in an interview Wednesday.

She and her team considered distributing the bears to town seniors. It would have been simple enough to do.In the past week the department’s transportation supervisor, Harris Friedman, has coordinated rides for 134 Smithtown seniors, and who doesn’t like a teddy bear? But they soon arrived at a consensus: "Kids," Perrino said. For a child at a hospital, "getting a nice little teddy bear, all wrapped up and pretty" could be a powerful gift, she reasoned.

On Wednesday, Perrino and Friedman, along with department staffers Patty Bornhoft and MaryAnn Jacoutot, delivered the bears to Smithtown’s St. Catherine of Siena Hospital, one of St. Charles’ sister hospitals.

By Thursday afternoon the bears had arrived in the section of St. Charles used for occupational therapy, where Emily Mercado and her daughter, Mia, of Miller Place, sat with therapist Kerrin Peterson. The other bears will go to other children in coming weeks.

Mia is 3 years old and has a rare neurological condition called lissencephaly, which can cause muscle spasms and seizures. She has been visiting the hospital three times a week since 2020.

A teddy bear can be more than a toy, Peterson said. Its paws can be made to clap, showing a little girl how to clap her hands. She can hold the bear, developing essential skills like manipulation and grasping. She can even take it with her on a slightly scary ride down a slide, as Mia did this day.

"It can be used as a motivational tool," Peterson said.

Now Mia leaned forward, pressed her face against the teddy bear’s face, and rubbed noses. The bear was already hard at work.

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.