He is home from school due to the COVID-19 closure. His neighbor is also home, recovering from recent surgery.

His mom, Kerry Akins, said the next idea just seemed right.

“We noticed his yard had a lot of sticks,” she said. “We should clean up their yard.”

His siblings — August Akins, 9, and Avery Akins, 6 — got in on it, too.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
Lincoln Akins, 11, at left; his brother, August Akins, 9; and their sister, Avery Akins, 6; pose with the sidewalk chalk drawings they made in a neighbor’s driveway after picking up the sticks and other debris for them in Harcourt.

“It took them about 30 minutes with all of them working together,” Kerry Akins said.

Then the siblings added some good cheer to the cleaned-up yard.

“We drew a picture on their sidewalk,” Avery Akins said.

There’s some yard waste to burn now.

“We put the sticks on their burn pile,” August Akins said.

“If they were too big,” Lincoln Akins said. “We took them to our own fire pit.”

Kerry Akins said she’s been keeping her stay-at-home children busy. She’s only working one day a week, like many others during the pandemic. They have their days sorted out.

“We have a normal routine now,” she said. “It’s school work in the morning, then lunch, then outside to play and burn off some steam.”

Or work a bit.

“There’s lots of yard work,” she said. “We have enough to do.”

They also reached out to a former neighbor now living in a care facility.

“We wrote letters to our old neighbor,” she said. “He called and said he got the letters and it made his day.”

She offers some tips to other parents in the same situation.

“Stick to a routine, keep active and have lots of outside time to get their energy burned off,” she said.

They’ve also been able to visit with friends, remotely via Zoom on the internet, during sessions with their teacher.

They also won’t be doing any panic buying. They got way ahead of the curve before the school closure and store rushes began. They’re good on toilet paper.

“We went to Sam’s Club before this started,” she joked.