Bearfootin' - A GREAT Community ProjectWhile vacationing in Western North Carolina, we came upon a really cool community project - We were on vacation this summer in the mountains in western North Carolina. My family has a cottage in the little town of Mountain Home, which is nestled between Asheville and Hendersonville. While we were playing tourist in Hendersonville, we kept seeing all these diffferent bears around town - all decorated and in a variety of locations. It turns out that we were lucky enough to catch the town of Hendersonville's "5th Annual CeleBEARation - Bearfootin' in Hendersonville". 
"Bearfootin' in Hendersonville" is a great community project that runs from the end of April until October 20th this year. These are full size bears that are painted to depict different themes - some related to the businesses they're out in front of, some depict local scenery, and others carry messages about life.  The bears are sponsored by various businesses around the area, and are decorated by local artists in the area. The bears are on display throughout historic downtown Hendersonville for everyone to enjoy. They are really fun to check out - beautiful work by the local artists who did each one of these bears. On their brochure, the bears are described as, "funny, thoughtful, silly, poetic, charming, artsy, and very bearable", and they are all that and more!  At the end of the "Bearfootin' in Hendersonville" display, on October 20th, an auction is held for each of these bears, with the a percentage of the monies raised benefitting local charities. In the five years they've been doing this in Hendersonville, they've raised close to $110,000 that's all for local charities. Cool community project, huh?  I know Chicago does the cows each year, and if I'm not mistaken the monies raised for those cows goes to their local charities as well. If we were to take on a project like this here in Portsmouth New Hampshire, we could use lobsters and/or a combination of lobsters and other native fish from the ocean. Isn't this a great idea for a local community project? I thought it was a really great idea, and a fun one that the whole community could get behind. How fun to be able to stroll through downtown to view each of the decorated critters of whatever kind! We had fun finding all the bears and checking out how they were decorated - took pictures of just about every one of them, too!  For anyone interested in doing something like this in their own communities, I'm sure the great folks in Hendersonville NC who've worked on this project would be more than happy to give you more details on their project, and how to make it successful in your own town. Give them a call at 828-697-2022!
Here are more of the bears of "Bearfootin' in Hendersonville" - so many really fun bears to check out! If you move your cursor over each of the bear pictures in this post, you'll see the name of each and what it represents by the artist who painted it.       http://www.newhampshiremainerealestate.com/0010F1 
Posted on October 05, 2007 05:21:24 by Ann.Cummings
Posted in Just For Fun
Comment from: Maggie Dokic [Visitor]  · http://www.theblogthatatemiami.comooooh Ann, this was a delight to read and the pictures are awesome. Sounds like you had fun. LOVE your new blog!  Permalink October 06, 2007 05:46:22Comment from: Ann.Cummings [Member] · http://www.newhampshiremainerealestate.com Hi Maggie,Thanks so much for reading, and I really appreciate your feedback on my blog. It's a work in progress but it's getting there - thanks for your compliment!! Permalink October 06, 2007 07:36:48Comment from: monika [Visitor] · http://monikamcgillicuddy.wordpress.com/That little bear sure is cute :) Permalink October 06, 2007 09:15:21Comment from: Ann.Cummings [Member] · http://www.newhampshiremainerealestate.comHi Monika - isn't that one cute? You should see what these really look like in person - just as fun and cute as they can be. And the detail of them when you can see them up close is amazing, too!!Permalink October 06, 2007 09:38:19Comment from: Carole Cohen [Visitor] · http://www.clevelandrealestatenews.comAnn I love the bears! I'm so glad you did this and the set up is gorgeous; I am a sucker for iron bridges so that is amazing to me. Very cool! Permalink October 07, 2007 19:29:35Comment from: Carole Cohen [Visitor] · http://www.clevelandrealestatenews.comof course i could have been halucinating! Love the photo of the lighthouse too soo serene. Permalink October 07, 2007 19:35:49Comment from: Ann.Cummings [Member] · http://www.newhampshiremainerealestate.comHi Carole - many thanks for visiting, and you're not hallucinating at all! The pictures across the top rotate between 4 or 5 different scenes. Your comment about iron bridges has given me a thought though about a different post...... thanks!Permalink October 08, 2007 05:27:26Comment from: Joanne Hanson [Visitor] · http://www.mountain-living.comHi Ann, it looks like the bears made a hit. My sister is an artist in Sedona, AZ and she participated in painting statues of wild pigs that are now all over town in Sedona. She had a lot of fun doing it, and the creativity was amazing from all the artists. It looks like it happened the same way with the bears! Permalink October 10, 2007 13:53:30Comment from: Ann.Cummings [Member] · http://www.newhampshiremainerealestate.comHi Joanne - I bet those pigs in Sedona are pretty cool looking to see. I've seen the cows they do in Chicago, and those were pretty neat to see. These bears were really fun to see up close - such detail and artistry in some of them. I thought this would be a great community project in a lot of towns, and because of the nature of it, Id bet the residents would really get behind a project like this. Thanks for reading!Permalink October 10, 2007 20:18:22Comment from: Amanda [Visitor] · http://www.rsspieces.comAnn, This was a very cute article. Yogi Beara was probably my favorite.but, I love all the bears. They all look so beautiful it must have been exciting seeing all the bears around town. ?Very neat. Permalink October 18, 2007 10:55:10Comment from: Ann.Cummings [Member] · http://www.newhampshiremainerealestate.comHi Amanda! Thanks for reading this post! It really was fun to see all those bears all over the downtwon area. There were a lot more than I included in these pictures, too. When you see these bears in person, you realize just how much detail there is in all the art work on each of them - a great community project and a fun one, too! Permalink October 18, 2007 20:21:26Comment on this article This post has no comments awaiting moderation. |
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