Purchase your bears today!

The Trooper Teddy Bear Project came to life in December 1989 after Kentucky First Lady Martha Wilkinson hosted a gala fundraiser at Red Mile Racecourse earlier that summer. The black tie event raised the needed funds to purchase 2,000 Trooper Teddy Bears.

The concept of the program was for Troopers to provide stuffed animals to children during traumatic experiences such as a car crash, child or sexual abuse cases, and also distribute to terminally ill children. The first allotment of bears included a personal note on each stuffed animal from First Lady Wilkinson.

KSP partnered with the Indiana State Police with this effort, and they, too, passed out Trooper Bears. The program ran out of funding in early 2000 until recently, when the agency plans to sustain the program by offering the bears for sale to the public.

When KSP troopers encounter young children, it is often part of a traumatic situation such as a car crash, drug or domestic abuse cases which sometimes result in the arrest of the parent. KSP hopes their ‘Trooper Teddy’ bears will serve as a tool to calm innocent children they find in these circumstances.

“When KSP is called to a scene, it’s not always a pleasant situation,” said KSP spokesman Captain Paul Blanton. “Unfortunately, there are many incidents where children are involved and witness scary things. To minimize the situation, we hope to provide children with a teddy bear to calm them down during these times.”

KSP Commissioner Phillip Burnett, Jr. said the program is designed to develop trust between officers and children.

“As a law enforcement officer, it tugs at your heart strings to arrive at a scene and see a child visibly upset and shaken,” says Commissioner Burnett, Jr. “These children are often innocent victims of parents who may have violated the law, or in the middle of a domestic disturbance or worse. This small gesture provides comfort and builds trust between the officer and the child.