VISTA - Taylor Crabtree didn't fit the mold of the little kid with the short attention span.

Crabtree's focus never has wavered when it comes to the great passion in her life.

On Oct. 28, the 17-year-old senior volleyball player from Rancho Buena Vista High marked her 10th anniversary sending teddy bears, called TayBears, to children battling cancer in hospitals throughout North America. She celebrated that milestone by taking another shipment of TayBears to the post office for delivery.

She has done that so often since she started the project at age 7 that more than 23,000 teddy bears have gone out to children in more than 150 hospitals. TayBears - named after the moniker Crabtree's parents dubbed her years ago - have made it to every state in the United States as well as some hospitals in Canada and Mexico.

"The original goal was to donate 50 bears," Crabtree said. "It took six months to get there. I thought I'd never reach my goal."

But when e-mails and letters started pouring back in from parents and patients thanking the youngster for her donation, Crabtree knew she couldn't stop. And she hasn't.

"The day I don't have to deliver one more TayBear will be the best day of my life," Crabtree said. "Yes, it would leave a huge hole in my life, but knowing that childhood cancer had been wiped out would be a good enough trade-off for me."

Crabtree was caught off guard five months ago at a Soroptomist Club luncheon to honor women for their volunteer work in the community. While listening to a student from UCLA address the crowd, Crabtree was stunned when the speaker turned and faced her, thanking her for all she has done for children with cancer.

The girl was one of those first 50 patients to receive a TayBear.

"Everyone looked at me, and I had a mouthful of salad," Crabtree said. "I didn't know whether to try to say something or just smile."

Crabtree picked out her teddy bears in the St. Louis-based Build-A-Bear Workshop catalog almost a decade ago and prepared and shipped the final product herself.

Today, a team of child volunteers helps dress each bear. Each bear has a "Hug a Bear" saying written by Anita Ighner on the back of its T-shirt. Crabtree names every bear and adds a hug before delivery.

"So the kids know the bear comes with love," she said.

Crabtree has performed this same ritual since beginning the project after her grandmother, Louise Tharp, was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent chemotherapy treatment in 1997.

Seeing how tough the disease was on her grandmother, Crabtree asked her mom, Tricia, if kids can contract cancer. Told that they do, she decided to do something to ease their burden.

Crabtree settled on teddy bears. But how to raise money to buy them?

She started designing and selling hair clips in front of stores such as Stater Bros. and at California Gold in Escondido, where she took gymnastics classes.

"I got told 'No' a lot back in the early days," Crabtree said. "I got kicked out of a few storefronts. They said I was loitering.

"I found out early on you can't give up just because someone tells you no or to get lost."

• Crabtree's desire to help cancer kids probably predates her grandmother's bout with the disease back to her own stint in the cancer ward at age 4.

She was hospitalized with immune thrombocytopenic purpura, a syndrome in which one's blood has difficulty clotting because of an unusually low number of platelets. Crabtree said she contracted scarlet fever, strep throat and chicken pox at the same time. She said her roommate during that hospital stay died of cancer while she was there.

To brighten the room during her hospital stay, Crabtree's parents piled stuffed animals in the plastic cover above her bed.

That little gesture may have subconsciously been the real start of the TayBear project that has touched the lives of thousands of patients, parents and even hospital workers.

"There are some very special people out in the world, and we hear some amazing stories about people who give and give," said Kathy Ruccione, the nursing administrator in the Childrens Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, who has known Crabtree for almost 10 years. "There isn't another Taylor Crabtree out there.

"What she has is a true gift. She's been blessed with something very special from a very early age. If you talk with her awhile you realize she's much more mature than you'd think. Some people would say she has an old soul."

The process employed by Crabtree in pursuing her dream has changed slightly. What began with Crabtree raising money to buy bears by decorating and selling hair clips for $2.50 a pair has expanded. Over the years, she has found more than 1,500 volunteers to help decorate hair clips, and donations from a variety of sources have increased her ability to buy larger quantities of TayBears.

About 97 percent of the hair clip sales and 100 percent of the donations go to the purchase of new bears, which Crabtree said cost about $5 each. The remaining amount covers the cost of shipping the TayBears across the continent.

About once a year Crabtree contacts a representative from each hospital she stocks with TayBears to get an estimate of how many bears the facility will need in a year. She then sends a year's supply.

• Getting TayBear Company started would have been a difficult project for anyone. But Crabtree, at the insistence of her parents, took it on herself as a 7-year-old.

The adults she encountered along the way had no idea what awaited them when she walked in and began negotiating with them.

She convinced the Postal Annex in Vista to donate a postal box for all her correspondence. She still uses that box today.

She also set up a business account at Union Bank of California, although she had to deal with a roadblock at the bank.

"The bank manager told Taylor she needed a fictitious business name before she could open the account," Tricia Crabtree said. "He told her that would cost $12 and her response was that it would mean she couldn't send out two bears."

The bank manager was so moved he bought $12 worth of clips to soothe Taylor's concerns and open the account.

On these trips seeking help, the adults always assumed Tricia was the one to talk to. When Tricia told them she wasn't, Taylor took over. Tricia eventually began staying in the car to avoid being a distraction.

"Taylor won't give up on anything she starts," Tricia said. "She's a pit bull when it comes to something like this. It doesn't surprise me she hasn't stopped doing this.

"Her project is all her, and it comes from her heart. I doubt she'll ever end TayBear because her heart is wrapped around it too tightly."

TayBear has garnered Taylor, the CEO as well as founder of the company, a lot of attention from around the nation. Among her honors, the city of Vista had Taylor Crabtree Day in February and there have been numerous certificates of appreciation from lawmakers and awards from Cal State San Marcos, the UC San Diego Cancer Center and too many television stations to list.

She was honored by People Magazine as one of its heroes in the Nov. 6, 2006 edition. That led to being featured on a CBS' "Early Show" segment.

Crabtree is a bit uncomfortable with the limelight. She deflects the glare as much as possible, saying it's just a means to get the word out about TayBear.

"I don't do this so everyone will know me," Crabtree said. "It's about the kids who are sick. They're all that matters."

Added Ruccione: "Kids who receive a bear from Taylor get what she's doing is something special. They're thrilled when she shows up with their very own bear. Their faces just light up."

More than one nurse has told Crabtree that kids have taken their bears into treatment rooms for chemotherapy and even into the MRI machine because, as Crabtree said, it keeps them calm during the procedure.

"I get e-mails and letters all the time from kids and their parents," she said. "I've gotten letters written in crayon with a picture of the kid with their bear, and that makes me feel good.

"I've even heard from parents whose child died. One kid, Ryan, was buried with his TayBear. That hurts when I hear that."

Tricia Crabtree was worried the first time her youngest of two daughters delivered TayBears to hospitalized patients. It wasn't long before that fear went away.

"I didn't know how she'd react because I saw her sitting and talking with sick kids, kids with cancer," Tricia said. "All Taylor saw was a little kid, the same as her."

Just because Crabtree will be off at college - she hopes to attend and play volleyball at Washington University in St. Louis - next fall, TayBear won't go on hiatus.

"We'd love to have her here," said Ken Harrington, the managing director of the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneur Studies at Washington University. "It probably took me a couple of minutes and I knew she was special.

"I've started seven companies in my life and I was never anything like Taylor at her age. There's something special in her."

Crabtree feels perfectly comfortable moving between her world as a teenager and the adult world soliciting support for TayBear.

"There's a Business Taylor and a Kid Taylor," she said. "I love wearing business suits and I get into jeans and sweatshirts when I'm with my friends.

"My friends understand there are two of me."

- Contact staff writer Terry Monahan at (760) 739-6648 or tmonahan@nctimes.com.

AT A GLANCE:

Who: Taylor Crabtree

School: Rancho Buena Vista High

Year: Senior

Positions: CEO and founder/TayBear; setter/girls volleyball team

On the Web: TayBearhugs.org

Age: 17

Volleyball accomplishments: Chosen as alternate for USA Volleyball High Performance A2 team. Won two gold medals and one MVP award at the USAV High Performance Championships in 2007.

TayBear T-shirt message

By Anita Ighner

What's so special about bears that no one should miss?

Just give them your hugs and they'll grant you your wish.

Is it wings you desire to fly over a cloud?

Hug a bear. Get your wish. You'll make it so proud.

Is it sweet dreams you need to get through your nights?

Hug a bear. Get your wish. You'll have no more fights!

Bears have the biggest, kindest hearts it is true

Just hug them tightly and make your wishes come true.