By Jared Janzen
BURRTON—Since the kids couldn’t come to the eggs, the eggs came to the kids.
A secret Easter Bunny hid eggs at Burrton kids’ homes last Friday for them to hunt for since Burrton’s annual community Easter egg hunt had to be canceled due to social distancing requirements
Altogether, 1,200 eggs were hidden at about 45 houses.
The Independent tracked down the secret Easter Bunny, who asked to remain anonymous.
“It was such a blessing to do this,” she said. “We never would have been given the chance to do this if all this coronavirus stuff wouldn’t have happened. It was a blessing in disguise.”
The Easter Bunny said a neighbor had first approached her about a month ago, concerned about kids not being able to hunt Easter eggs this year. The would-be Easter Bunny kind of brushed it off at first, figuring each family would just have to fend for itself.
But then the neighbor brought it up again last Thursday and gave the would-be Easter Bunny a check for a couple hundred dollars to go buy eggs and candy.
“We pretty much raided Dollar General,” she said.
She had help packing and hiding the eggs from her husband, kids, a couple high schoolers and one other adult.
With only a limited number of eggs, they decided to only hide eggs for students third-grade a younger. They also had little time to plan, so they used their neighborhood knowledge to figure out which houses to hide eggs at, which totaled 29 houses and then they started hiding eggs at other houses where they saw kids outside.
“We lost track, but I think it was around 45 houses,” she said.
They would tape signs on people’s front doors saying, “You’ve been egged,” and then quickly hide eggs around the front yard. They put out 10-15 eggs per child at the home.
It took them four hours on Friday afternoon to hide all the eggs. She said they had been caught in the act on a number of occasions. At one house, a woman saw them coming and must have known their plans because she sent her kids inside, according to the Easter Bunny.
Some of the eggs had money inside. They went through $20 worth of quarters and then started using smaller coins.
A number of parents posted their appreciation for the surprise egg hunt on Facebook and the Easter Bunny said she felt really blessed to read these comments.
Billy Lazenby said his daughter, Kristina, was overwhelmed with excitement about it.
“It was definitely a much-needed break from being stuck inside and not being able to go to the park or other things like that,” he said. The entire community has come together during these unprecedented times. Folks have been reaching out to offer help like I’ve never seen before.”
