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THOUSANDS OF TEDDY bears left as tributes to the Manchester Arena attack victims are being donated to charities across Manchester.
Almost 2,000 teddy bears and soft toys were left in St Ann’s Square in the city following the terror attack on 22 May.
The attack saw 22 people killed and hundreds more injured when a device was detonated in the arena following an Ariana Grande concert.
Alongside toys, thousands of letters, gifts and flowers were left in the square.
This week, the teddies will be sent out to children through charities in the Greater Manchester area, including Wood Street Mission and The Toy Appeal.
After the attack, the teddies were all collected by shoe-makers Timpsons.
Members of the army of Women’s Institute (WI) took the teddies from Timpsons and washed and repaired all of them. The teddies all now clean and ready to head off to new owners.
Speaking to Manchester Evening News, Judith Suckling, vice president of Old Trafford WI said: “When we first heard about the attacks we really wanted to help in some way.
“We had talked about doing a fundraising with WI, we talked about doing a collection, but when we were approached about cleaning and drying the teddies we thought it was a fantastic idea to do something to help.
She said that the teddies had a strong smell of rain and damp and the WI made the decision to wash them all and restore them to a fit for purpose state.
A teddy is a symbol of happiness and all of the teddies are smiling.
People left them as a tribute, and maybe they were sad when they were leaving them but I think the people that left them will be surprised that so much love and care has been taken.
“They’re going to be passed onto charities and they’re going to be given to children to enjoy for the rest of their journey.”
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These floods have been going on for the last 3 days and the journal are the first to do a story on it, nothing in any of the other news sites
They’re trying to find a way to link it to Putin first.
Sad
You would think that when you can’t see the massive propaganda against Russia at the moment.
Do you actually believe that they are trying to link Rainfall to Putin?
No it was a joke ffs…
Albeit a bad one at that.
Joe, congratulations for being the first to link this to Putin.
Thank you Journal for sharing story on this. I contacted you last night about it so is very appreciated. I hope you keep covering it as situation is very bad and people need help. Badly. We are trying to organise something from Ireland but we have very little knowledge how to do it except privately sending small amounts of money which is not really help in moment as they need water, food, nappies etc for next few nights. Looks like all help or most of it is coming from few countries ( Russia among first) and ex Yugoslavian from other countries. Croatia and Slovenia send help as well even there is big risk in Croatia for same happening to them. Any further media cover keep donation to this people so thank you very much for it.
They need to get going on climate change mitigation soon as the situation is not going to get any better – it is not as if this was not predicted with a warming climate in the region. Big floods in Germany around the Danube last year when I was there too. Warmer air holds more moisture and leads to heavier rain and more storms – one of the basics of climate and meteorology. Every country needs to start mitigation work against the worst effects of climate change, because it is here now and it is not going away.
Geo engineering at its evil best
Proof?
have your say