During the course of my first campaign for Mayor I had the pleasure of having a coffee hour at the Merrimack Valley Apartments on Calumet Road. During the course of that coffee hour I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of several ladies who had undertaken an enterprise that they referred to as the Huggy Bear project. It was a club of ladies devoted to sewing from scratch beautiful teddy bears that they then donated to hospitals and to charities involving children. But these ladies had a problem. The one sewing machine they had was old and ready to fail. They needed a new machine but had no funding for one. Upon hearing of their problem I called upon Senator Steve Baddour, then City Councilor (and now State Rep.) Linda Dean Campbell and the three of us approached the Methuen Wal-Mart for assistance. In no time at all Wal-Mart donated two new machines to the Huggy Bear ladies, as well as $500 in credits towards the purchase of supplies for their efforts. Since then they have continued to sew and donate their beautiful work to so many different charities. I recently visited Merrimack Valley Apartments for another coffee, and saw my friends again. If you are interested in having them sew you some beautiful teddy bears please email me or call me at 978-983-8505. Keep up the good work ladies.