Early Easter surprise in school lunch awaits Hardin County kids

Area children who participate in tomorrow’s school meal program will likely find an early Easter treat in their lunch bags, Hardin County Director of Schools announced Tuesday afternoon.
Pickwick Landing State Park and Joel and Sabrina Franks, owners of Windward Media of Savannah, have jointly donated just over 5,000 plastic Easter eggs to Hardin County Schools. Davis says an egg — factory pre-filled with candy, toys and stickers — will be put in each lunch bag at all 11 meal program locations Wednesday, and handed out first-come first-served until they run out.
He said Ranger Brittney Magness contacted him about donating Pickwick Park’s 3,000 eggs after its Easter egg hunt had to be canceled because of the current social distancing order due to COVID-19.
Sabrina Franks told The Courier she ordered 2,076 of the pre-filled and boxed eggs to give local kids some semblance of a normal Easter.
“After the first order came out, urging people to social distance, I ordered the eggs with the idea that we’d put them out in the yard, and cars could come by and kids would get out one at a time, and be able to still hunt Easter eggs,” she said.
The idea, she said, was inspired by the recently popular “bear hunt” activity, where parents can drive children around to spot creatively-positioned teddy bears that have been mapped on social media.
Franks said that after the second stay-at-home order, with its stricter language requiring people to stay at home except for essential activities, she felt the original plan just wouldn’t be safe.
“I want kids to have fun, but it’s more important that everyone be safe. So I started wondering what I could do to still get these eggs out to kids, and found out that Pickwick State Park was donating their eggs to the schools – so I did too,” Franks said.
She noted that the eggs came delivered in boxes, and have not been handled.
Hardin County Schools said the eggs will be placed in lunch bags by school system workers wearing gloves.