Seabreeze club gives Pocket Bears to lift students’ spirits

Annabella Kaney Olivari wants her peers to know ‘they are never alone.’

By Guest Author
| 5:00 a.m. May 3, 2022

Annabella Kaney Olivari and her pocket bears. Courtesy photo

Ormond Beach Observer
Neighbors

by: Julia Ambrose

Contributing Writer

Annabella Kaney Olivari created the Pocket Bear Club at Seabreeze High School to spread warmth and positivity, and it’s working, with 44 members attending weekly meetings. The club creates little bears to be given to others as a gesture to bring comfort. Not everyone needs to know how to sew; members can cut out patterns, glue parts together, fundraise for materials, and market the mission of the club to others.

The idea for the club started last October, when one of Olivari’s classmates collapsed during basketball tryouts after suffering from a sudden cardiac episode. She was in the hospital for several days after being airlifted to a hospital in Jacksonville. Olivari decorated the outside of a gift envelope with two felt hearts, a pink one and a white one. She later received a message from the dad, saying he took the white heart off and put it in his pocket. He still keeps the white heart in his pocket every day.

During the scariest time of his life, the simplest thing brought him comfort.

Olivari then began this initiative as her volunteer project for the Tomorrow’s Leaders program. Participants are required to complete 12 volunteer hours which are “above and beyond.”

“I wanted to dedicate my Tomorrow’s Leaders hours to something very dear to me: making sure my peers know they are never alone with their struggles,” Olivari wrote. “After seeing some of the bears I have made, a former SHS guidance counselor, Peggy Hart, suggested I start a club at school to help ensure as many bears as possible can make an impact.”

The pandemic was hard on Olivari as well as other students, with regard to mental health. In quarantine, she realized she was not alone in her thoughts and struggles. The idea of a pocket “bear hug” is meant to be a small but mighty gesture to brighten someone's day.

The bears will be provided to teachers and faculty to give to students who are having a difficult day, feeling sad or stressed, to remind them they are loved and not alone.

Future goals of the Pocket Bear Club include bringing in mental health speakers and professionals to meetings to shed light on topics of anxiety and depression. At Seabreeze, there aren’t any mental health awareness clubs, so Olivari is hoping this club will help raise awareness to mental health among teenagers.

To get involved, email the club sponsor at [email protected].