When a group of police officers found a bunch of old uniforms from the 90s, they decided to upcycle them for a great cause.
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After Officer Cody Gray found over 100 old police uniforms at the Kalkaska Police Department, he asked his wife, Eva, what she thought they should do with them. Gray’s wife suggested they turn them into teddy bears for children.
“I’ve dubbed them patrol bears,” Eva Gray told Inside Edition.
Once the idea was born, Eva Gray went to work on her creation. It took her six hours, but she was able to make an adorable teddy bear with several different parts of the uniform.
Eva Gray has now mastered the art of making teddy bears and can now create one in just two and a half hours. The bears now include a special replica of the current uniform with “a stripe lining down the pant leg and a patch on the tummy.”
Caption: YouTube | Inside Edition
“We took it in to show the lieutenant and he absolutely loved it,” Eva Gray said to Inside Edition.
To make the bears even more special, they are given to kids of police officers that have been in an accident or undergoing a family tragedy.
“The teddy bears are going to kids when they’re at the most vulnerable when they need something extra to help them get through an event,” Officer Cody Gray said to Inside Edition. “I think it’s going to be great to give these to the kids so they can feel better in a bad situation.”
The bears have been a huge success and Eva Gray has already gotten request from other police departments to come make bears from their uniforms. However, Eva Gray doesn’t know if she can make the time between making the bears now, her full-time job, and raising her three kids.
With her busy schedule, Eva Gray is constantly thinking of ways the bears can get made with help from the community.
“I was actually trying to think about some type of grant that I can get to do this full-time. [That] would be really cool,” Eva Gray said to Inside Edition.
For now, Eva Gray will keep making the bears one at a time. She hopes to make two bears for each patrol car adding up to about 140 bears for the station.
“It seems pretty neat to me because then the child will have a piece of the officer,” Eva Gray told Inside Edition. “That’s very unique.”
