Dreier takes cows across the country

BRECKENRIDGE - Breckenridge resident Ted Dreier introduced Head Start kids to Moozie the cow in 1991. Since then, he has delivered seven life-size, robotic cows to locations throughout the nation to teach kids about kindness.

He just received a grant from the Hoeft Family Foundation to support two new Web sites at www.moozie.com and www.childrenskindnessnetwork.org. The first has interactive kindness games for children, while the other includes materials and information for parents and teachers.

The Children's Kindness Network, a nonprofit based around Moozie, has formed an education committee with faculty from the University of Wisconsin to evaluate children's books. It plans to program the cow to read 50 to 60 books to help raise reading test scores nationwide, Drier said.

The nonprofit hopes to reach 300,000 children this year with Moozie's kindness message and wants to raise $150,000 to do so.

Dreier has expanded his program to include Moozie kindness puppets (available at Creatures Great and Small in Breckenridge). Meadow Gold Dairy in Denver has placed Moozie on the side of its school milk cartons, which reach more than 100,000 children in Colorado.

Other states that have embraced the Moozie message include Arizona, North Carolina, California, Missouri, Texas and Kansas.

"Our dream is that we work with young children and they begin to understand the significance of kindness," he said. "I mean, they see so much violence, it's unbelievable. My vision is that Moozie will be as common a word in the household as Smokey the Bear and that it will be tied in with kindness - that parents will tell me when their kids hear 'Moozie wouldn't like it if you did that' they stop (misbehaving)."

For more information, call Dreier at (970) 453-0410.

- Kimberly Nicoletti