What is the Adopt - A - Bear program?

            Adopt-A-Bear is a program that provides wrapped gifts to needy children from our local communities during the Christmas holidays.   The program was designed to be an “invisible pipeline” for individuals, groups and business to reach out to these children and their families during the holiday season. The program was founded in 1991 by Klaus and Anne Liebig of Easton,  when it served 30 children from our local community. Because of the tremendous community support, the program has grown to serve over 2,000 area children each season.

How does the Adopt-A-Bear program work?

            Adopt-A-Bear volunteers place Bear Trees at many various businesses and organizations throughout our community. The trees are decorated with lots of colorful Bear Tag Ornaments, each having the first name of a child, their age, sizes and any special requests.  It’s easy to Adopt-A-Bear!  Just pick a tag off the tree and consider this child as your own for the holidays.  Have fun shopping and wrapping!  Return the wrapped gifts to the location where you picked up the tag by the date specified and we will do the rest.

Where do the names of the children come from?

            Adopt-A-Bear works closely with many local elementary schools, head start programs, and other support organizations from the mid shore serving the children livign in the mid shore.  These organizations qualify the children and provide us with only first names, ages, sizes and any special requests.  We make every effort to protect the identity of those we serve.

It takes a lot of community volunteers doing several different jobs to make it all happen.  It is a win-win program.  The children have gifts for Christmas and the volunteers have the satisfaction knowing that they have done a great thing.