A toy company previously exposed for being woke sank to a new low when an employee refused a Washington teen’s attempt to honor Charlie Kirk.
The self-styled tolerant and inclusive left has time and again proven to be anything but, even in the wake of tragedy. After an Office Depot employee was fired for refusing to print vigil posters in the wake of the Christian patriot’s assassination, calls rang out for a Build-A-Bear Workshop employee to suffer the same consequence after a girl’s attempt to name a bear for Kirk was stopped when the employee “threw it away.”
“It wasn’t political until she made it that way,” 16-year-old Evi McCormick told KING 5 of her experience at the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila, Washington, just south of Seattle.
After she and her friends stopped in at the store to make a stuffed bear sporting a suit, the customary naming step was quashed when a manager reportedly refused to allow the late Turning Point USA founder’s name to be printed on the birth certificate.
“She just didn’t agree with it. She didn’t support it and she told me, ‘We’re not doing this,’ folded it up in a force and threw it away,” recounted the teen.
BREAKING: Employee at a Build-A-Bear Workshop in Tukwila, WA, REFUSED a request to write Charlie Kirk’s name on the bear’s birth certificate for a customer.
Evi McCormick, who requested it be named after Charlie, said that the employee said “We’re not doing this” before… pic.twitter.com/k77D0I7smE
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 3, 2025
After getting upset, McCormick explained that she handed her card for payment over to her friend, Kailie Lang, and walked away. Lang told KING 5, “It definitely made us all very uncomfortable,” after the teen had only sought to honor Kirk, of whom she expressed, “I was just mesmerized and captivated that he could speak with such elegance. He was a role model.”
Store employees directed KING 5 to corporate headquarters for comment, and the news outlet was told, “The case is being handled internally by the appropriate department.”
Meanwhile, the teen’s mother, Amber McCormick, made her own call and relayed that she had initially been offered a $20 gift card before receiving a call back days later with an apology. “She said that their goal is to try to prevent this sort of situation from happening to anybody else.” It was also conveyed to her that there was an intent to retrain the Seattle area workforce.
KING 5 highlighted the posted policy at Build-A-Bear that, given how they receive so many children as visitors in the store, efforts at a “welcoming and friendly environment” for employees and guests alike include asking that customers not type “indecent or distasteful names for furry friends.”
The policy against things considered “inappropriate” didn’t stop the company from pushing its own brand of woke, including featuring a RuPaul teddy bear in drag and the launch of an “After Dark” collection that included alphabet activist themes as well as more risqué outfits for bears.
Though some had called for a boycott of Build-A-Bear on social media, others suggested a buycott, flooding stores with requests for Charlie Kirk stuffed animals as “The Charlie Kirk Show” Executive Producer Andrew Kolvet proposed, “How about handling the case by publicly acknowledging the employee has been fired and giving away 1,000 free Charlie bears, or something.”
How about handling the case by publicly acknowledging the employee has been fired and giving away 1,000 free Charlie bears, or something.
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) October 3, 2025
Is this the cue for everyone to get one and name it Charlie Kirk just to mess with the staff?
— Ming the Merciless (@stanleymwc) October 4, 2025
Well I feel like it’s time to get a whole bunch of Charlie Kirk Build-A-Bears but I have mixed emotions about putting my money there if they’re going to treat people that way
— Katherine Sargent (@GirlOnARock2627) October 3, 2025
That’s not far from me. I’m tempted to go down there tomorrow and get me a Charlie Kirk bear.
— MissJinxed (@iammissjinxed) October 3, 2025
How do you retrain hate?
— Gigs (@GigiHSVARK) October 3, 2025
Seems like all these places only hire mentally ill people
— Frankie Dushaj (@FrankieDushaj) October 4, 2025
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Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn’t researching current events and their impacts, you’ll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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