By seeking an interesting birthday gift for a creative friend last winter, 10-year-old Dan Harper of Signal Mountain birthed a business.

That business, Freeky Friendz, now has a Web site, a following in several area retail stores and a diverse line of fleece stuffed toys. “I wanted to give (my friend) something nobody else would have,” Dan said.

The company now includes partners Alex and Cathy Gray. The enterprise has benefited from parental advice and a dollop of grandparent assistance.

Each one of the Friendz — 318 have been made to date — is 13 to 15 inches high, stuffed with fiberfill and covered with fleece. Each face is hand-embroidered.

“It’s kind of freaky,” Jeannie Harper said her son told her as he showed her his first creation, which he had made at his grandmother Phyllis Dunworth’s home.

That’s how the name was born. The pending trademark business slogan is “the perfectly imperfect toy.”

Requests from friends and fellow students at Thrasher Elementary School caused the business to take off last spring, Mrs. Harper said. Today, she, her mother-in-law Jane Harper and Elaine Gray, Alex and Cathy’s mother, handle the majority of the sewing and embroidery.

Dan draws the designs for customers who are not particular, she said.

In her son’s words, he “freaks it up,” Mrs. Harper said.

The fifth-grader said he is not sure how big he wants the business to get or what the next step is, but it can currently turn out 15 to 20 Freeky Friendz a day.

Reaching a point “where it conquered over Tennessee or at least Chattanooga” might be good, Dan said.

He hasn’t realized much money from the venture yet, he said, but his mother said she is proud of his “philanthropic streak,” which prompted him and his partners to donate 10 Freeky Friendz to T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital and 10 to a YMCA fundraiser.

“It’s been an evolution,” said Mrs. Harper, “and it’s been fun to watch. It’s been a huge learning opportunity for him.”

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