By Police1 Staff
ORLANDO — After receiving an essay prompt to write about something she believes in, Megan O’Grady came up with an idea to help families of fallen officers.
O’Grady, whose father is a police officer, realized the impact policing has on LE families and decided to create “Blue Line Bears,” BBC News reported.
She and her grandmother hand-stitch the bears for the children and families of the fallen cops. They dress each bear with the fallen officer’s uniform, badge and patch.
“I just thought of an idea that would reach out to them personally, and give them something that was a piece of their parent ... so they can hold that every single night and think of them,” O’Grady said.
O’Grady told the BBC that each bear takes about four days to finish. Each bear also comes with a medal of Saint Michael, the patron saint of police officers.
She delivered the first bears this week to the families of fallen Lt. Debra Clayton and Deputy Norman Lewis. Clayton was fatally shot while approaching a murder suspect and Lewis was killed in a motorcycle accident pursuing her killer, the Associated Press reported.
Clayton’s son, Johnny Brinson, said out of all the gifts he received after his mother’s passing, the bear was the best.
“I always hugged her in her uniform - even before she went to work, while she was on duty...” Brinson said. “Seeing this patch, feeling it again … I’m very thankful for it, to make it - it’s amazing. I love it. I really do.”
O’Grady’s father said her compassion and empathy is “breathtaking.”
“With all the craziness and unrest, it is good to know that there is still someone I can look up to and call my hero,” he wrote on the Blue Line Bears Facebook page. “Who knew that it would be my daughter?”