News Beary Good Deed

This fall an 8th grader named, Callista Webb, combined her baking skills and loving heart to make a difference in the world. Callista received $50 from her church and needed to use the money to do something good in the world. After taking time to consider all her options, she decided upon helping out children at the University of Iowa. When Calista was much younger she had to visit the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics to have regular check ups, tests and a few major surgeries. At one particular visit, Child Life gave her a teddy bear with a beating heart. She was told to listen to the heartbeat as they prepped her and performed some unpleasant procedures.  She never forgot how the bear helped her that day or what the Child Life Specialist did to make her more at ease.

Callista met with Mrs. Lyons, a 7th grade science & PLTW teacher at the Pella Middle School, and asked if she could sell monster cookies to raise money to buy bears with heartbeats for the U of I Child Life Specialists to give to children when going through difficult procedures. Mrs. Lyons set up a cookie cart outside her room at school where students could purchase cookies throughout the day. Calista took the $50 and bought the ingredients to make the cookies and then sold over 204 cookies. Once all the cookies were sold and the money was counted, Callista had enough money to buy 21 bears with beating hearts.  This spring she delivered the bears to the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics Child Life department. Calista said that her favorite part of this whole experience was seeing how the Child Life Specialists reacted when they saw 21 bears come in the door. Callista has plans to some day attend the University of Iowa and become a Child Life Specialist herself.