"I wonder if we can fit this one in here?" she said, holding one aloft.

For the past month, Welch and her family have shared their den with hundreds of teddy bears.

"What have we gotten ourselves into?" she joked.

A month ago, Welch's high school aged children, Ben and Sarah, and 18 other home-schooled honor society kids began a campaign to collect teddy bears and send them to Iraqi children hospitalized with war injuries.

The students set up collection sites in churches, at gymnasiums and other places. Donors dropped off over 1,500 teddy bears.

"It was an overwhelming response. Much more than we ever expected," she said.

"It's a community service project and there's no reward. It's just the reward of knowing you did somebody good," said 14-year-old Ben Welch.

"We can't send anything that has the U.S. flag or God bless America on it, nothing of religious importance. But everything else goes," said 15-year-old Sarah Welch.

So far the Mercedes and her children have mailed 36 boxes of toy bears to Iraq.

"We're at the point now where we show up at the post office at the airport and they say, 'Hi, Mercedes,'" she said.

The teddy bears are sent to a U.S. Air Force base. The military said it will try to send the Welch's photographs when the bears reach the hospitals and the hands of Iraqi children.

Imagine how that will feel.

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