Neighborhood Connects During Social Distancing with Virtual Egg Hunt

To a lot of people, Easter usually means community, fellowship, and time spent with family, but with social-distancing measures and widespread isolation this year’s holiday weekend will look a little different.

In an attempt to bring its residents together, one Chapel Hill community is providing its families with some eggcellent Easter activities.

Emily Behr lives in the Briar Chapel community located in Chapel Hill. She is the mother of two little girls – a five-year-old named Wren and a 2-year-old named Poppy.

Behr has lived at Briar Chapel with her daughters and her husband Greg for the past three and a half years.

She said Briar Chapel puts on a lot of community-centric events for families to participate in, even amid a national pandemic.

“It’s a great way to feel like we’re all in this together, that we’re connected and that, even though we can’t see as many people as we normally might, that we’re still able to be a community,” Behr said.

This week’s event included a virtual egg hunt where residents are encouraged to get a little crafty.

“The virtual egg hunt is great because they’ve encouraged everyone to make their own egg and get really creative and then hang them from the windows which has been really neat because as you’re going on walks with your family and trying to get out a little bit you can see everybody’s eggs,” Behr said.

Wren and Poppy were some of the first to decorate their paper eggs to proudly put on display.

“My two-year old actually made one too,” Behr said. “She got really into hers and she put a bunch of stickers on there and pom-poms and stuff like that.”

Poppy (2) decorating her paper egg (photo courtesy of Emily Behr)

Behr said after decoration it wasn’t long until her husband was dragged around the block by his daughters to look for other eggs hanging in neighbor’s windows – providing a festive new game for the family on one of their many quarantine walks.

Easter in the Behr household normally consists of time spent with the grandparents, a trip to the beach and of course your more traditional egg hunt and Sunday Service.

This year, of course, looks a little different.

“We normally get all the cousins together and do a big egg hunt,” Behr said. “It’s a big family time for us as well as we go to church and we’re not able to do that which is really different. Our church is doing Facebook Live which has been nice but it’s hard not being able to be with other people during that – especially family members.”

As the Behr’s wait out the pandemic, they have learned to connect with their family and friends in other ways – whether it be virtual playdates for the kids, time outside interacting with neighbors from across the street or even writing letters.

Poppy (2) with her decorated paper egg (photo courtesy of Emily Behr)

“What we’ve started to do that’s been really neat is just even sending letters to people and so letting people know there’s other ways to share that you care about somebody and that you’re connected other than just seeing each other face to face,” Behr said. “We’ve done a lot of letters to our grandparents and to our teachers and to our neighbor as well and that’s been really fun.”

Behr said as we approach this holiday weekend, it’s important to focus on the positives, be there for one another and connect in whatever way we can – even if the most you can do is hang a decorated egg in your window.

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