Jill Hasenkopf-Miller and her mother lead a plush life these days.

Sort of.

The Saegertown, Crawford County, residents co-own and operate Charity Bear Co., a steadily growing $500,000-a-year business that designs and sells fund-raiser teddy bears themed around diseases and medical conditions. It primarily raises money for medical research and awareness of life-threatening illnesses.

Pam Panchak/Post-Gazette
Jill Hasenkopf-Miller and her mother, Kathryn Hasenkopf, with a couple armfuls of bears.

Hasenkopf-Miller, 35, and her mother, Kathryn Hasenkopf, 58, formed the company in 2001 after the daughter had had a kidney transplant and breast cancer. Both women wanted to do something special to make the lives of others affected by serious illnesses a little more, well, bearable.

"I'm cancer free and rejection free at the moment, but I'm always afraid that my cancer's going to come back. I was at stage three, which is really advanced. It beats all statistics that I'm here," Hasenkopf-Miller said.

Her mother, who is in remission from uterine cancer, handles the day-to-day operations while her daughter attends Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine to become a doctor.

Charity Bear occupies half of the Saeger House, the 1840s homestead in Saegertown, several miles north of Meadville. The company has two bear product lines: retail fund raiser and custom. At least 10 percent of the proceeds of every bear sold goes to charity.

"We say 10 percent, but in reality we donate everything we can. There are still times when we donate half or all of the sales or donate the bears for free so an organization can sell them. It all depends on our operating expenses at the time," Hasenkopf-Miller said.

There are 40 fund raiser bears, ranging in costs from $4 to $10 each, depending on quantity purchased. The 8-inch-tall beanies come with a colored awareness ribbon over their hearts, a hang tag with a poem and charity I.D., a quirky name and design features that represent a disease, medical condition or charitable cause.

"Parker" is named for Parkinson's disease, "Harmony" for AIDS, "Sporty" for organ donor transplant games and "Forget-Me-Not" for Alzheimer's disease.

"Hope the Survivor Bear" for Breast Cancer Awareness has longer fur than the other bears because her hair grew back after treatment. "Link," the Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Bear, has a pocket to hold a card that helps a person in need ask for help. "Passion," the Lupus Research Bear, comes with a visor because those with this autoimmune disease must avoid sunlight.

Profits go back into the company to make more bears or cover operating costs. Neither woman accepts a paycheck.

Last year, the company sold more than 100,000 bears and donated $40,000 to charity, partly due to partnerships with nonprofits such as the American Cancer Society and American Heart Association.

This year, more than 112,000 bears have been sold and the company hopes to donate $65,000.

"We're not just a bear company making money off of other people's illnesses. We have no money; we've struggled with the disease; we've suffered and felt the pain," Hasenkopf said.

In 1986, Hasenkopf-Miller was a 17-year-old Saegertown High School senior when she developed flu-like symptoms. Tests showed she had lost 50 percent of her kidney functions, possibly from an undiagnosed case of strep throat in her childhood.

A special diet and careful monitoring kept her fairly healthy until she turned 26, when her kidneys failed. She had a transplant in August 1996. Then the next year, she learned of her breast cancer.

As a distraction to dialysis and chemotherapy, she and her mother collected the Ty Beanie Babies that were popular at the time.

"We thought it was a blast, but after we had so many we thought: 'These are really neat but they don't really mean anything. Wouldn't it be great to make a bear that stands for something?' "the daughter said.

The first charity bear was a fuzzy white "Gift of Life" Organ Donation Awareness Bear. It led to a partnership with the National Kidney Foundation of Western Pennsylvania.

"We're very thankful for [their] efforts financially and for helping to spread the word about organ transplantation," foundation CEO Deb Hartman said. "Jill is an inspiration. It's remarkable that through all of her pain, suffering and trauma, she looked for a way to turn the focus to how she could help others."

The second product was "Hope" the Breast Cancer Research Bear, which has remained the company's most popular bear.

An appearance on NBC's "Today" show in the summer of 2001 catapulted the company into a full-fledged online company, drawing customers from as far away as Sweden and Japan.

The bears are sold primarily through the Internet, but retail stores and catalogs carry them. In Pittsburgh the products are sold in the gift shops of UPMC Shadyside, Allegheny General Hospital and the Hillman Cancer Center.

"It's been an amazing journey. We're so grateful that we can help so many people, even in a small way," Hasenkopf-Miller said.

For more information, visit www.charitybear.com or call 814-763-6755 or 1-866-763-BEAR.