Bunky Bear: Ambassador for Cancer-Stricken Kids
Bunky Bear was not born a star. Instead, he began life at a manufacturing plant before finding his first home in the humble surroundings of a hospital gift shop. There he was adopted by the mother of a very sick child, John.
John was only seven when he and Bunky met. In a Seattle, Washington, hospital to receive his second bone marrow transplant, John was far from his Florida home, battling Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) that had evolved into high risk Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML).
John had had stuffed animals before, but had never really bonded with them. However, with Bunky, it was different. It was love at first sight. John and Bunky were immediate friends and went everywhere together, even getting X-Rays together. John could tolerate most anything as long as Bunky was with him.
For his part, Bunky provided love and comfort and companionship for John. He was also glad that John decided he could keep the name he had been born with, a name he wore proudly on the tag around his neck—Bunky.
John lived two and a half years after meeting Bunky. “Even as he was getting older,” remembered his mother Margaret, “John took him [Bunky] everywhere, even making him part of the family portrait.” And when it was apparent John would lose his battle with his disease, and his parents asked him if he would want Bunky to stay in the casket with him, he replied, “No, no, Bunky is not sick, he must live.”
And so Bunky lived and continues to live and love and comfort sick children battling varying forms of leukemia and other cancers.
Bunky became the inspiration and mascot of the fledgling non-profit charity John’s mother started just six months after John’s death. The John Voight Memorial Foundation, Inc., established in 1992 and changing its name in 1996 to Kids Beating Cancer, Inc., has been the foundation behind the Kids Beating Cancer Pediatric Transplant Center at Florida Hospital for Children in Central Florida. The center provides a place in Florida for sick kids needing bone marrow transplants to receive treatment as well as providing support for their families who are going through the process with their children.
When Margaret decided to make Bunky her foundation’s mascot, she worked with a creative designer who researched Bunky’s beginnings and origin (1982) and was even able to buy a second one. They took the teddy bear apart to see how he was made, and then made changes of their own to come up with their own Bunky, keeping his color the same and making sure the love in his eyes was not lost. Early Bunky Bears were hand sewn; he went through several changes until he was redesigned in 2013 and a Limited Edition Bunky emerged.
Why a teddy bear as a mascot? When Margaret had been in Seattle for John’s second bone marrow transplant, she had noticed that many of the children had stuffed animals with them, but not many had teddy bears. And she remembered that John had not bonded with any stuffed animal until he had met Bunky. Bears are so lifelike, so comforting, she decided, and nothing excited them more than getting a boy or girl to stay with. So a teddy bear it was. And, of course, its name was Bunky, after John’s teddy.
Today when a child is admitted to the Kids Beating Cancer Pediatric Transplant Center, there’s a Bunky Bear on their bed, welcoming them and promising to stay with them forever.
“There is something so magical, even spiritual, in the bears’ faces so the children just want to hug them,” Margaret explained. Each Bunky Bear comes with a short synopsis of John’s story concluding, “John’s spirit lives on through all the joy his pal Bunky brings to every child that receives this soft, cuddly treasured new friend.”
(Thanks to Kids Beating Cancer, Inc. and celebrity photographer Michael Freeby for the above picture of Jay Leno and a Bunky trio.)