Coronavirus Causes Americans To Look For Easter Fun Within 6 Feet Apart

Article content NEW YORK Easter is a very special holiday for 6-year-old Nora Heddendorf. It's a day when she's a sucker for dressing up in a fancy dress and shiny shoes, and have fun with family and friends searching for brightly colored eggs.

This year, the coronavirus epidemic has forced her into a state of adaptation. She'll be wearing her Easter outfit with a white paper mask, blue disposable gloves, and a jar of disinfectant wipes. After learning that the annual egg hunt in her New Jersey town might be put on hold, she thought of an "rock hunt."

The content of the article replaces eggs with brightly colored stones, and she lets her friends go on their social-distancing walks to hunt.

The kindergartener stated she was devastated that the program would be cancelled due to the virus during an interview by phone with Reuters. "I would like people to be happy."

From the White House to small town parks, the pandemic has forced the cancellation of the traditional Easter egg hunts and "rolls" across the United States, closed churches and scotched plans to have Easter meals with extended families.

However, many Americans are still looking for ways to enjoy the holidays for the holidays, from an Oregon candymaker making chocolate bunnies that wear masks to an Texas church organizing an egg hunt in virtual reality using the video game Minecraft.

Article content A few weeks ago, Nora and her mother began planning her hunt in their town of Medford Lakes. She put together a number of DIY kits, each containing five rocks as well as four paint colors, and instructions and all of it wrapped in plastic bags. She used disposable gloves and spray the entire contents with disinfectant.

The kits were left outside her home for anyone who wanted to take them home. On her Facebook page, called Nora's Rocks the young artist appealed to her followers to return the decorated rocks to her to hide.

"Thank you for helping Nora's Rocks bring our community together while remaining apart," she wrote in the instruction letter she included with the kits.

Samantha Heddendorf, Samantha's mother and the president of an environmental cleanup company which has been cleaning up structures affected by the coronavirus crises The hunt will begin on Good Friday and continue through Easter Sunday with new batches of painted rocks being hidden each day.

Content of the article The aim of this project is to place 500 stones "eggs" in every corner of the 1 mile (2.6 km) town.

"When people are doing their walks with friends, they might be looking for rocks or Easter Eggs. Samantha Heddendorf stated that they could find something to look for, pick them up and, at a minimum, put on a an emoji to commemorate Easter.

Central Point chocolatier Jeff Shepherd came up with a plan to keep his Lillie Belle Farms in Oregon from being shut down by coronavirus. He told his Facebook followers that he would make "Covid Bunnies" that are dark and milk chocolate with white masks on them and white chocolate ones with blue face masks.

It was an enormous success. Shepherd was able to bring back the seven full-time employees he had laid off and has sold 5,000 bunnies and is scurrying to fill back orders, now limit purchases to six per customer.

Article content Safe distancing to thwart spread of the virus is what prompted the Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, to move to digital with its Easter Egg hunt, using Minecraft but disabling potentially frightening game elements like monsters.

Reverend Curtis James stated, "Our main goal in life is to spread the gospel. We also want children to have fun celebrating Easter."

Back in New Jersey, Nora was thrilled that her idea was welcomed by a wide range of people, with the town's mayor stopping by to watch her fill the kits and the local Lions Club inviting her for lunch "when this entire thing is done."

Her most cherished "thank you" was wrapped in gift-wrapped rolls toilet paper, one of the staples such as eggs being hoarded by people panic buying during the pandemic.

Nora said, "My mom smiled when toilet paper was delivered." (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg, New York; Additional reporting by Rich McKay, Atlanta; Editing done by Rosalba Obrien

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