Matthew Shepard was a college student, targeted for being gay, robbed, and brutally murdered in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998.
Shepard's murder affected people around the world in a range of ways. Two men from Denver organized a Teddy Bear Project, in which people created bears in memory of victims of hate or violence. The Bear Foundation (Bringing Equality and Respect) was in Littleton, Colorado. The men hiked from Fort Collins to the fence where Shepard was tortured and left to die and left 150 Teddy Bears. Later, this bear along with the others toured as an educational project.
This bear, named "Jerry Bear," came from Kristie Bonner in Lincoln Park, Michigan. Jerry Bear is named for the son of a woman she met outside a grocery store from the group "Parents of Murdered Children, Inc."
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