To celebrate Easter over the long weekend, Pelham families took part in the Hoppin’ Easter Hunt, running from Friday, April 2 to Monday, April 5 through a smartphone app. Over the four days, there were 55 active teams participating and over 2350 “mission” submissions—tasks or challenges—were submitted by them.
Leah Letford, Special Events and Festivals Programmer for the Town of Pelham shared the list of winners with the Voice. In first place came the Williams family, and there was a three-way tie for second between the DizonDudes, the Egg Seekers and the Hall Family. Additionally, nine runner-up prizes were awarded due to the contribution of the hunt’s sponsor, Policella Homes.
Eighty-four missions were released in total. Some were trivia-based while others were tasks or challenges that required photos or videos to be submitted as proof of completion. Letford’s personal favourites were the ones where she was able to see the fun that the families were experiencing, such as an egg toss (some teams used real eggs), a duck walk, magic tricks, and the bunny burrow challenge, in which teams had to build a blanket fort. Letford also saw a lot of creativity from the community in the form of missions submitted by local businesses that had sponsored specific prizes.
“The At Home Spa [mission] had lots of teams getting pampered, complete with manicures and cucumber slices on their eyes as part of the challenge for Allure Spa and Wellness,” said Letford, “The With my Peeps [challenge] that was done by Everyday Market had families creating and crafting their own at-home chicks, and the Big Crunch mission had apples from DeVries being bitten into to make a crunching video.”
The hunt not only had challenges for families to complete at home, but many missions that involved visiting places around Pelham (socially distanced), like parks and trails, to do activities specific to the unique sites.
Letford added that the Easter Bunny joined in on the fun and submitted Bunny selfies as clues to locations from around Pelham for the event. Additionally, she enjoyed seeing the smiles that showed up in the photos and videos submitted over the weekend.
“With so many of our traditional events being impacted this past year, it was wonderful to see that families were spending time and making memories together as they made their way through the different challenges. The Hunt really allowed for the teams to be part of something, even though they were not physically together.”
Both of the such hunts hosted by the Town in recent months—the Family Day Adventure, and the Hoppin’ Easter Hunt—have received positive responses and will not be the last of their kind. Another hunt is planned for Canada Day.
