The teddy bear turns 124 this week. Back in November 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt went bear hunting in Mississippi, and after a long day with nothing to show for it, his guides cornered a black bear, tied it to a tree, and invited him to shoot it. Roosevelt refused. It wasn’t sporting. A cartoonist drew the scene for the Washington Post, and a Brooklyn candy shop owner named Morris Michtom was so taken with it that he had his wife Rose sew a little stuffed bear for the front window. He called it “Teddy’s bear,” and the rest is history.
More than a century later, a stuffed animal is still one of the first gifts most kids ever get. The difference is that today most of them roll off an assembly line by the millions, and it’s hard to find one that feels special.
That’s why I was so happy to come across cuddle+kind.
cuddle+kind is a family business started by Jennifer and Derek Woodgate, a couple from Ontario raising three kids of their own. Every doll is hand-knit from 100% cotton yarn by artisans in Peru who earn a fair trade income. They’re safety tested for newborns on up, and each one comes with its own name, birthday and favorite saying. There’s Violet the Fawn, Hannah the Bunny, Charlie the Honey Bear, Lucy the Lamb, and a whole menagerie of others.
Here’s the coolest thing. Every doll provides 10 meals to a child in need. The company says that’s added up to more than 30 million meals so far, for kids in dozens of countries, including here in the U.S.
They also make a Tiny Collection that’s especially sweet. Each Tiny doll is about 6 inches tall and comes in its own little cardboard “home” with a tag that says “gives 10 meals,” which is a nice way to explain to a little one that their new friend helped another kid get dinner. Through July 2027, cuddle+kind is donating $1 to Feeding America for every Tiny doll sold, which helps provide at least 10 meals through local food banks.
Reviewers rave about how soft and well made they are, and more than one says they buy one for every new baby in the family. That tells you something.
These aren’t cheap. On Amazon the 13-inch Little size runs $87 and the 20-inch Regular size $109, and the Tiny dolls are around $48 on cuddle+kind’s own site. But if you’re shopping for a baby shower, a grandchild’s first Christmas, or something you’d like to see handed down someday, this is a gift that gives twice: once to the child who unwraps it, and again to the child who gets a meal because of it.