Care bears found a new home
When Vikki Foss died from a massive asthma attack her family wanted some good to come of her death.
So the 22-year-old's father Nigel, stepmother Mary and younger sister Natalie, got to work setting up the charity AWAAIRE Bear – based on an idea Vikki had during her teacher training.
As teachers can no longer hug children, the charity provides huge huggable teddy bears to provide comfort in the classroom, and each cuddly toy comes wearing an asthma awareness T-shirt so the condition is never far from people's minds.
The only problem is – the Fosses had not worked out where they were going to keep their 150, 3ft-high bears and, short of cramming their home full of them, they were stumped for a solution.
That was until Adrian Chubb, manager of Spacemaker storage centre in Portsmouth, came along.
'I met the Fosses when they were storing Vikki's belongings here after she died,' said Mr Chubb.
'Nigel told me about their charity and having a wife with asthma, who has had to be rushed to hospital in the past, and just being touched by their situation, I wanted to help.
'So I contacted our director and asked him if we could offer their bears a home and thankfully he said ''yes''.'
Now, thanks to the kind-hearted efforts of Mr Chubb, the Fosses huge collection of giant bears are all stored in a unit at Spacemaker.
The storage company could rent the unit out for more than 200 a month but have given it to the Foss family free for a year.
The family, who have found comfort in carrying on Vikki's memory through the charity, were overwhelmed by Mr Chubb's offer.
Mr Foss, 54, of Dore Avenue, Portchester, said: 'This is a godsend. We would have had to store all the bears in our house had Adrian not rescued us.'
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Weather for Portsmouth
Saturday 26 May 2012
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