Dillon, a first-grade teacher at Gilmore City-Bradgate Elementary and Middle School, went to work several weeks back on putting together an Easter egg hunt here in her hometown.

“I got the idea of having a community Easter egg hunt when I was looking through a magazine that gets delivered to my classroom every month,” Dillon said. “They were advertising different products for Easter egg hunts and I thought with all of the kids we have in the Barnum community, we should start an annual egg hunt.”

Dillon quickly took to social media to see if there was any interest in such an event before following up with city officials.

“There weren’t any issues putting it together actually,” Dillon said. “I posted on our community Facebook page asking if there was any interest and when I found there definitely was, I reached out to City Council to ask permission to use the park. Not only did they give me permission, they donated $200 to the project. I also had already secured donations from Dillon Rod and Custom and The Junkyard Bar and Grill.”

She ordered 1,250 eggs online to be filled will candy that was purchased from donations made by local businesses, even planning an “Egg Filling Party” as she called it to make the task a little easier.

That’s when things with the novel coronavirus started to first cloud the picture.

“It was scheduled for the beginning of April where community members were going to come to my house, eat some supper and help me fill the eggs,” she said. “There were a lot of people willing to help out, but with COVID-19, I decided to cancel it and just do it myself. I’m trying hard to keep my distance from people and do my part to not spread any illness. Our City Council secretary has been a great help. She put flyers in the city bills so our community members knew about the egg hunt, she opened a bank account for us to keep track of monetary donations and she purchased some extra candy to fill the eggs.”

With the limits on social gatherings, that put an end to the planned hunt in the city park. But Dillon was determined to make sure some form of the event still went on.

“It was nice to see the positive comments on Facebook when I offered to hide eggs myself,” she said. “I think the real excitement is going to be Easter morning when the kids wake up to find all those eggs In their yards.

“I came to the decision to hide eggs in individuals yards when I realized how serious COVID-19 was becoming. I had already purchased the eggs and candy and it didn’t make sense to let it all go to waste. I knew the only safe way to still have an egg hunt was to do it for each individual family and to hide the eggs myself when no one else was around, regardless of how many generous people offered to help. I’m a first-grade teacher so I’m off work right now and I have nothing but time.

“Why not do something that can put some smiles on children’s faces and lift everyone’s spirits a little. It’s the least I could do.”