Gund's LIFE Bear – Helping Fight Breast Cancer

Val Skinner has been an LPGA touring golf professional since 1983. When her friend and fellow golfer Heather Farr was diagnosed with breast cancer, Val and her fellow LPGA golfers were shocked. Twenty-four-year-old women are not supposed to get breast cancer. And they are not supposed to die at 28. When that happened, Val knew she had to do something. That was the beginning of the Val Skinner Foundation and LIFE, or LPGA Pros In the Fight to Eradicate Breast Cancer. Every year the LPGA sponsors a prestigious golf tournament, with the proceeds going to the largest private funder of breast cancer research and education, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (Komen Foundation), and to the Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ), a National Cancer Institute designated clinical care center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Gund, as an official corporate sponsor of the foundation, has provided generous contributions to the cause as well as introducing the Gund LIFE teddy bear collection to help promote breast cancer awareness and early detection. The LIFE Teddy Bears are made of soft pink plush and feature the LIFE logo on the foot, with the "L" forming a pink breast cancer ribbon. Each LIFE bear's hang tag includes information on proper breast self-examination techniques, and a portion of each sale benefits LIFE and the Val Skinner Foundation. The LIFE bears are available in several sizes, and there's even a LIFE bear driver cover--a soft pink plush bear wearing a golf sun visor, with a stretchy knit stocking to protect your golf club.