BADDECK, N.S. — Petra LeBlanc didn’t want to see her neighbourhood’s annual Easter egg hunt be cancelled because of the emergency measures in place to limit the spread of COVID-19.
So she revamped it so the children on her street could still hunt, while social distancing and keeping safe.
Instead of hunting for eggs, Easter morning the children will hunt for words. And they’ll need to find all the words if they want their Easter chocolate.
“Each house gets a designated word to put on a window or the lawn,” the married mother of two explained.
“The children have to find the words. Then they’ll have to unscramble the words to say a sentence. The sentence will tell them where their treats are (at their home). It might be, the treats are hidden in the bucket on the back porch. Then the children go home and find the bucket on the back porch.”
LeBlanc and her neighbours have been doing a community Easter egg hunt for 10 years that sees each family hide eggs on their lawn. Children can each take one before running to the next location.
“Here, it’s almost bigger than Halloween or Christmas, because the kids are so excited to do the Easter egg hunt,” said LeBlanc, explaining why she came up with the word hunt idea.
“There will be little kids so I told (my neighbours) to not make it too difficult for them to find.”
LeBlanc said the children participating range in age from one year old to 12.
Tammy MacSween lives on LeBlanc’s street and her children have participated in the egg hunt many times. She is happy the Easter tradition is able to continue.
“I love the idea. It was really disappointing that we couldn’t carry on our Easter egg hunt tradition,” she said.
“When Petra ran this idea by me, I was all for it. Each family will have a time so we are not all out at the same time, so we are still following the social distancing rules. And to have something different for the kids to do is a bonus. It’s hard to think of creative ways to keep them active and engaged. I’m really excited we are doing this.”
