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Article content NEW YORK - Easter is a holiday that is special for 6-year-old Nora Heddendorf. It's a time when she loves to get dolled up in a chic dress and shiny shoes and spend time with her family and friends searching for brightly colored eggs. The coronavirus outbreak forced her to adapt this year. She'll be wearing her Easter outfit with a white paper mask along with blue disposable gloves and a bottle of disinfectant wipes. After being informed that her New Jersey town's annual egg hunt might be cancelled, she came up with the idea of a "rock hunt." Article content Nora's hunt does not only substitutes brightly painted stones for eggs that are scarce at some stores, but also allows her neighbors to hunt during their walks. "I was sad it was cancelled due to the virus," the kindergartener told Reuters in a phone interview. "I would like to make people feel happy." The pandemic has affected everyone from the White House to small towns parks. It also led to the suspension of traditional Easter egg hunts across the United States. Closed churches and scupched plans for Easter meals among extended families. However, many Americans are still looking for ways to have fun during the holidays such as an Oregon candy maker making chocolate bunnies that wear masks to an Texas church hosting a virtual egg hunt with the game Minecraft. Article content Nora and her mother started organizing their hunt in Medford Lakes a few weeks ago. She gathered dozens of DIY kits, each containing five rocks and four paint colors, instructions and all packaged in plastic bags. Of course, she wore disposable gloves and spraying the contents with disinfectant. She then left the kits outside her house to be picked up by people who want to participate. The young artist, Nora's Rocks, asked her friends to return the adorned rocks she had left to her for hiding. "Thank you for helping Nora's Rocks bring our town closer while remaining separate," said the instruction letter she included in the kits. Samantha Heddendorf, Samantha's mother and the president of an environmental cleanup company which has been cleaning up structures affected by the coronavirus crises She said that the hunt will begin on Good Friday and continue until Easter Sunday, with new batches of painted rocks being hidden each day. Article content The goal is to place 500 stone "eggs" in every corner and crevice of the 1 square mile (2.6 square km) town. "When people are taking their social distancing walks, they can look for rocks - or so-called Easter Eggs. Samantha Heddendorf stated that they could find something to look for, pick them up and, at a minimum, put on a smiles to celebrate Easter. In Central Point, Oregon, chocolatier Jeff Shepherd had a brainstorm to save his Lillie Belle Farms from shutdown in the wake of the coronavirus. He informed his Facebook followers that he was going to create "Covid Bunnies" which are milk and dark chocolate confections with blue faces masks, and white chocolate ones that don't have blue masks for faces. It was a huge success. Shepherd was able to rehire seven of his full-time employees. He also sold 5,000 bunnies and is now scrambling to fulfill back orders. Article content Safe distancing to thwart the spread of viruses is what convinced the Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, to make the switch to digital for its Easter Egg hunt, using Minecraft but disabling potentially frightening game elements like monsters.MY CMS "Our main goal is to spread the gospel, but we also want children to have fun and enjoy Easter," said Reverend Curtis James. In New Jersey, Nora was excited that her idea was warmly embraced by so manypeople, with the town mayor stopping by to watch her fill the kits, and the local Lions Club inviting her for lunch "when the whole thing is over." Her most loved "thanks" was wrapped in gift-wrapped rolls of toilet paper. This was one of the mainstays that people panic-shopped during the pandemic. Nora said, "My mom smiled when toilet paper came in." (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)