The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Department of Corrections have partnered in an initiative to give 2,000 hand-made teddy bears to foster children in need.
Cabinet Secretary Vickie Yates Brown Glisson said the bears provide needed comfort to children facing trauma because they are being removed from their family.
The bears are sewn by inmates at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange and offered to the Cabinet's Department for Community Based Services through a partnership with the Department of Corrections.
Kentucky Justice Secretary John Tilley says the program not only helps children but teaches inmates about empathy, kindness and the importance of community.
Officials say the Department for Community Based Services has nine regions and each received 222 bears.