In the days following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, John LaNoue and his wife found themselves responding to the devastation in a simple but meaningful way: delivering teddy bears to those in need.
Following the attacks, LaNoue was contacted by Mickey Caison, then national director of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief. Caison had learned from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani that help was needed to distribute teddy bears sent to New York by Americans as expressions of care. Thousands of the bears had quickly accumulated in two area warehouses, where they needed to be sorted, organized, and distributed.
“[Caison] said people sent somewhere between 20 and 40,000 teddy bears,” LaNoue explained.
LaNoue agreed to follow the call and help distribute them—but only on one condition: “[Caison] said, ‘Will you go?’ I said: ‘On one condition: You don’t ever tell the people in Texas that LaNoue was working with teddy bears in New York.’ And he agreed not to rat on me.”
John and his wife, Kaywin, used 18-wheelers to collect bears from warehouses in New York and New Jersey and began sorting them with a team of volunteers. He then loaded them into a rented truck and carried them to a military checkpoint.
LaNoue remembers being stopped by an Army lieutenant at a checkpoint. After LaNoue explained the truck was full of teddy bears, the lieutenant requested to inspect the vehicle. Once he finished, he wondered if he could have one.
“[The lieutenant] asked, ‘Can I have one?’ And so, he left with a rifle under one arm and a teddy bear under the other,” he said.
Bears for the brokenhearted
Teddy bears were brought to a headquarters in New York, where they were packed into boxes and distributed throughout the city. According to a separate account by LaNoue, the bears went to fire stations, police stations, and the Victim Family Service Center, with notes addressed to firefighters, police officers, and victims’ families.
About 1,500 Care Bears, equipped with movable casts and bandages, were placed in New York City ambulances to comfort children during pediatric emergency calls. Another 100 “prayer bears” were distributed to children in a hospital ward.
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Police officers and counselors also carried the bears when speaking with victims and people on the street. LaNoue would fill a refrigerator-sized box with teddy bears, only to see it emptied almost immediately, he said.
“Every police [officer] would get one to put in his car when he went to talk to the people. Every counselor who went to talk to the people took some with him. … I had trouble keeping it full. They just emptied it. Day after day, I got to see teddy bears in the back window of the police cars,” he said.
“It was a reminder to them that they were being thought of and being loved.”
While distributing bears, LaNoue said a police officer pulled him over and asked him to pray with him. LaNoue said the teddy bears created opportunities for him to minister to people affected by the tragedy.
“It was a ministry that I didn’t understand, but the teddy bear itself [is] something to hold, something they can touch, and it represents what they lost,” he said.
During LaNoue’s time in New York, an airliner reportedly crashed, and he said the Federal Aviation Administration contacted him to ask whether he could provide teddy bears for children and families affected by the crash.
“They called all the relatives in for a meeting, and I had a room, and I lined the walls with teddy bears. … The baseboards were completely covered with teddy bears. And when the kids came, I said: ‘Alright children, this is your room, and these are your teddy bears. Pick out the ones you want to take home.’”
Children picked up the bears and cuddled them, LaNoue said, while parents expressed their gratitude. LaNoue said he never had a teddy bear ministry before or since but is grateful for God’s divine appointment.
Continuing a legacy of service
LaNoue and his wife remained in New York for more than three months, where they served alongside a team of around 150 Baptist disaster relief volunteers to help feed workers, support the Salvation Army kitchen, and clean hundreds of ash-covered homes and apartments, free of charge.
“We started bringing in volunteers to clean apartments. Every apartment in that area [had] broken windows. … And there was an eighth to a quarter of an inch of solid gray ash on everything in the apartment. You opened the door, and it was all gray,” LaNoue said.
The effect the volunteer efforts had on New York was profound, he explained.
“The effect … was: ‘Somebody loves us. They care about us. We’re not just a city here by itself, but people care about us.’”
Today, at 92, LaNoue continues to serve others with Amigos Internacionales, a Christian humanitarian nonprofit organization he helped establish in 1967 as a mobile medical and dental clinic.
Over the decades, the Texas-based organization has expanded its mission to provide clean water, education, medical care, food security, and support for local churches throughout East Africa. Today, field leaders and local partners carry out that work in Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
For LaNoue, his lifelong commitment to serving others is rooted in Christ, whose love compels him to recognize the dignity of every person and gives him the grace to love and serve everyone he encounters.
“I’ve learned to love everyone. They’re all made in God’s image, and I love them all. I’ve made no differentiation. … I get up in the morning … and I say: ‘Here’s another day. One more to serve [God]. Let’s make the most of it.’”
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