A major event that we sponsor each Spring is a charitable event that Dr. Beitchman founded in 2013 and is very near and dear to his family’s heart. He named it “Spring for a Teddy Bear of Love”. It was born out an idea Dr. Beitchman had to put a smile on children’s faces at a nearby children’s hospital. You see, Dr. and Mrs. Beitchman’s son Joshua was born at this hospital, but was born premature and had to be placed in the NICU for a very long month. He and his wife remember a little teddy bear that was placed next to the incubator where their son laid, struggling for life.
The teddy bear came to represent a ray of light and hope for the future. About 21 years later, their son Joshua, all grown up and a junior in college, was thinking about applying to medical school. Dr. Beitchman marveled at how far his son had come and decided to go back to this hospital, now called Children’s Methodist Hospital, to tell them he wanted to say thank you for all they had done for his family. He wanted to find a way to give back to the community, and hopefully give sick children and their families a smile and hope for their futures. He asked the hospital personnel what did the sick children get during the year other than during the winter holidays to cheer them up. Sadly, the answer was, nothing. So Dr. Beitchman decided he wanted to doing something about that, by giving as many sick children as he could special Build-a -Bear teddy bears in the Spring. Thus was born the project he named “Spring for a Teddy Bear of Love”.
Each year now, Dr. Beitchman and his staff organize and sponsor this project. Each February, we encourage the many dentists we work with and their staffs to go and create one or more special, unique Build-a-Bear teddy bears at the stores located in San Antonio. This has become a fun teamwork project for each of these offices! Then, at the end of March, Dr. Beitchman and his team have a “teddy bear round-up” in which they go around San Antonio and collect all the special, unique teddy bears which are then placed on display during the month of April in our office. We catalog each bear and include a certificate showing all those who have participated in the project. If you would like to see videos of our past years projects, including pictures of some of the children who received them at the hospital, please watch the videos below:
