For more than two years, Penn State alumna Michele Rivera has collected teddy bears at Artistic Horizons, 2790 W. College Ave., to send to children in crisis around the globe.

In December, a special holiday drive works to collect bears, but bears are collected year-round.

After Sept. 11, 2001, Rivera started the project, named Bears that Care, by collecting bears to send to children who lost parents in the tragedy. Rivera also ran a drive last spring to send stuffed animals to children whose parents were serving in the Iraq conflict.

"These are children who are going through something out of the ordinary," said Rivera, a State College resident.

Last Friday, Rivera sent 130 teddy bears to Puerto Rican orphanages. Bears from the holiday drive go to Washington, D.C., Texas, North Carolina and Africa.

Zoe Rojas, Rivera's mother, who volunteers for Bears that Care, advocated the holiday drive.

"Christmas is for exchanging gifts. You touch people you don't even know," Rojas said.

"Children -- they all want toys. Bears are even welcome to grown-ups. I think bears are the number one toy in the U.S."

Rojas added that bears are an age-appropriate gift. "For any age you can buy a bear," Rojas said.

The bears are also extremely special to the children in the orphanages.

"When they see the bear, it is very special to them because they don't have nobody," Rojas said.

Rojas spends much of her time trying to raise money for the project. Last week's shipment of bears to Puerto Rico cost about $300, Rojas said.

"I'm the one who really goes out asking for money," Rojas said.

Although Rivera or other family members sometimes deliver the bears in person, Rojas is unable to travel much because of her health. "Spiritually, it helps me a lot. I can touch them somehow. I can't be traveling to places, but I can do things here," Rojas said.

Notes written by volunteers also accompany the teddy bears, Rivera said. Marlene Temeles, a friend of Rivera's, has hand-written 100 notes this year to send with the bears. "[Rivera] wanted them to be personalized in a way," Temeles said.

Temeles' husband, Arlan, and daughter, Lisanne, also wrote 100 notes each. They divided the project among the three of them and sat down to work. "It was a family project," she said.

Temeles added that writing the notes was important to the project, "so that the children would know that someone in Pennsylvania cares about them."

Though the program started as a local project, it has expanded to send bears all over the world.

"We've sent bears to Argentina and Ecuador. We never thought it would be international. I was joking that the bears need passports," Rivera said.

Three hundred bears have been collected so at Artistic Horizons, which will take them until Christmas.

Donation boxes will be at Panera Bread, 148 S. Allen St., the State College YMCA, 677 W. Whitehall Road, Christ Community Church, 1606 Norma St., and Giant Food stores, 255 Northland Center and 2222 E. College Ave., until Sunday.