Neighbors connect through teddy bear hunt
■ An Easter egg hunt is planned for this week.
While many people are isolated at home by social distancing, a neighborhood in Siloam Springs has found a way to stay connected through a teddy bear hunt.
More than 24 families are participating in the bear hunt in the area of Maple Street, Wright Street and College Street, according to organizer Kaitlyn Dinger. Residents put teddy bears or other stuffed animals in their window or on their front porch in view of the street, so families with young children can walk by and spot the bears from a safe distance, she said. Some bears and stuffed animals are easy to find while others take a minute or two to search out, Dinger said.
“It’s connecting our neighborhood, and even though we are a great neighborhood, it’s connecting our neighborhood in a different way, it’s really unifying,” she said.
Dinger got the idea for the game after reading about similar teddy bear hunts taking place across the country. She reached out to several neighbors who are members of Friends of the Siloam Springs Public Library, including Brenda McCord, Laura Flynn and Grace Davis, who were quick to get on board, she said. Within half an hour, eight families signed up to participate and as the word spreads more people are getting involved every day, she said.
The teddy bear hunt has families walking up and down the street waving and visiting with people sitting on their porches from a safe distance, Dinger said. Some of the people taking part in the adventure have children while others are elderly or don’t have any kids at home, she said.
“It’s fun for them because they get to wave from their porches and see all the families walk by,” Dinger said.
Dinger said many of the children in her neighborhood are
used to getting together to play and even though they can’t get too close now, the bear hunt encourages them to stay connected. Dinger’s children have also met several families they had never talked to before through the experience.
Alice Douthit, who has lived in the Siloam Springs neighborhood for more than 40 years, described the bear hunt as a “win, win, win situation.” Douthit sat her teddy bear in his own chair on top of her patio table where children can see him from the street. Her neighbor across the street has a bear on her trampoline, she said.
“It makes you feel good yourself, it helps parents and the kids love it,” she said.
Douthit said two families stopped by her house on their bear hunt on Wednesday afternoon.
“The kids were so cute, hanging on the fence, talking to me and finding my bear and they were so happy. … This was such a good idea for all of us. I think the people with the bears are having as good a time as the kids,” she said.
Dinger hopes to adapt the teddy bear hunt to an Easter egg hunt this week in response to a friend’s suggestion. She plans to send an electronic file of coloring pages of an Easter eggs and ask people to color the eggs and tape them in a window for children to spot, she said.
“It’s such a unique time in history, I think everyone is kind of connecting and unifying,” Dinger said. “We’re not together but we’re all in this together.”