‘We care about them.’ Northwest ISD students bond with bears at nearby sanctuary

Students at Berkshire Elementary, open for its first year in the Northwest school district sure do love their mascot. Make that mascots.

This school year the students have adopted bears from the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Boyd as a campus service project. The school mascot is ... you guessed it, Bears, so each class has adopted one to support.

Of course, the bears remain at the sanctuary, and because of COVID-19 restrictions the students haven’t been able to visit them in person. Nonetheless, they are proving that love and care can travel.

“The kids are in love with their classroom bears,” said Amanda Johnson, counselor at Berkshire. “Each bear has its own individual story, and we talk about what rescue means and how we’re helping them as a community.”

The sanctuary is home to around 30 rescued bears, including 22 North American black bears, one Asiatic black bear and seven brown bears.

The idea came from Berkshire principal Justin Vercher, Johnson said. He wanted to include a community service project for the school as Johnson said he believes strongly in children engaging in service-oriented projects.

“After having this discussion in an admin meeting, I decided to do a little research to see if there was anything bear-related that we could help with. Sure enough, 20 minutes down the road is a sanctuary that houses rescued bears,” she said. “I went to their website and saw the plethora of bears that they had and thought it would be a great idea for a classroom to unofficially ‘sponsor’ a bear. I ran the idea by my principal and he loved it.”

So Johnson reached out to the sanctuary to began communicating on how they could make the project work. Every classroom was able to view a Google doc outlining all the bears and their troubled histories. Based on what they read, and after having classroom discussions, each class chose a bear to support.

“It is beneficial for the students to not only be aware of what great causes are in their community, but also to create a sense of empathy for another creature,” Johnson said. “All the students were able to take ownership and support their bear, and if you ask any student on campus who their bear is they can tell you their name.”

As part of the project, students created “bear boxes.” Each class made a decorated box for their bear, which were then delivered to the sanctuary by a few staff members.

Bears, it turns out, love to play with cardboard boxes, especially when there are smaller boxes inside, Johnson said. Adding a small amount of smells, such as peanut butter, dog treats, herbs and spices, etc., entices them even more.

“The whole school went into ‘bear box mode’ for a couple hours to create this fun and engaging toy for the bears,” she said.

“I like making the bear boxes because it gives them a project or toy to play with,” said fourth-grader Sophia Evans. “It’s a fun way to have a snack so they aren’t bored. We are the Bears and we help each and don’t leave anyone out whether it’s people or animals.”

Bears also enjoy frozen popsicles made of canned fruits and vegetables, so the classes held a canned food drive and dropped those off.

“We like to help the bears because it’s fun and we care about them,” said kindergartner Madison Grady.

Johnson said the project has also been inspirational to herself, instructors and other adults on campus.

“What a fun and sweet way to teach your students empathy, being a servant leader, and stopping to think about how to be a great citizen,” she said.

This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 6:00 AM.