In January 2002 northeast Phoenix, Arizona resident Dr. James Meade was awakened from a deep sleep as he heard some one say, “You have to go to K-Mart”. At first he thought it was his wife Phyllis, but as he glanced around the room he noticed that she was not there. He decided that he must have been dreaming so he returned to sleep. Within a short period of time he once again heard, “You must go to K-Mart”. He proceeded to get dressed and found Phyllis reading the newspaper. She asked him why he was dressed and where we was going? He told her that he was off to K-mart. Her answer was, “for what?” and he said, “I don’t know”. He then told her what had happened to him shortly before. Upon arriving to K-Mart about 6:00am he asked mentally, “Why am I here”? He heard a voice say, “Turn right”. As he walked down the long isle he found a large number of 2001 Collectable Bears. He purchased one and thought that this would be a great gift for children next Christmas. The only catch was that each bear had the year 2001 embroidered on its foot. After failing to remove the stitching, Dr. Meade was inspired once again to create an outline of a story about the bears. He then gave the outline to Phyllis and she composed a story about how the bears were lost on Christmas Eve and did not arrive in the loving arms of Children until the following year. It is called, “The Story Of The Lost Bears”.

Dr. Meade purchased 240 of the 2001 bears and stored them until December 2002. Then, along with friends, he got them out of storage, brought them to his house, attached a story to each bear, hugged, and bagged them all. With the grateful thanks of the Arizona Chapter of the Children's Cancer Support Group, Ronald McDonald House, and numerous local hospitals' pediatric and pediatric intensive care units, all the bears were delivered by Christmas. Delivering the "Lost Bears" has been the major annual project of On Wings of Love Foundation.