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p>New York - Easter is a special holiday for 6-year-old Nora Heddendorf. It's a day when she's a sucker for dressing up in a fancy dress and shiny shoes, and enjoy time with family and friends searching for brightly colored eggs.

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p>The coronavirus epidemic forced her to change her clothes this year. She'll be wearing her Easter outfit by wearing a white mask along with blue disposable gloves and a bottle of disinfectant wipes. After hearing that the annual egg hunt in her New Jersey town might be cancelled She thought of a "rock hunt".

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p>Content of the article Nora's hunt replaces eggs with vibrantly colored stones and lets her friends go on their social-distancing walks to hunt.

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p>Article content "I was sad it was cancelled because of the virus," the kindergartener told Reuters in a phone interview. "I would like to make people feel happy."

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p>The pandemic has affected everyone from the White House to small towns parks. It has also forced the cancellation of traditional Easter egg hunts across the United States. Closed churches and plans to scotch Easter dinners with extended families have been cancelled.

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p>However, many Americans are still looking for ways to have fun during the holidays for the holidays, from an Oregon candymaker making chocolate bunnies with face masks to a Texas church hosting an egg hunt that is virtual with the game Minecraft.

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p>Article content Nora and her mother started organizing their hunt in Medford Lakes a few weeks ago. She gathered a plethora of DIY kits, each containing five rocks and four paint colors, instructions and all packaged in plastic bags. She used disposable gloves and sprayed the contents with disinfectant.

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p>The kits were then placed outside her house to be picked up by those who wish to take part. On her Facebook page, called Nora's Rocks the young artist encouraged her community to return decorated rocks to her for her to hide.

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p>"Thank you for helping Nora's Rocks bring our town together while staying separate," said the instruction letter she included in the kits.

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p>Her mother, Samantha Heddendorf, president of an environmental cleanup firm which has been removing toxins from buildings affected by the coronavirus outbreak The hunt is expected to start on Good Friday and run through Easter Sunday, with fresh batch of painted rocks to be found each day. https://minecraft-servers.sbs/ </p>

p>Article content The goal is to put 500 stone "eggs" in every corner and crevice of the 1 square mile (2.6 square km) town.

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p>"People can look for Easter eggs or even rocks on their social distancing walks." They can find and then grab them and, at the very least, a smile to celebrate Easter with," Samantha Heddendorf said.

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p>In Central Point, Oregon, chocolatier Jeff Shepherd had a brainstorm to save his Lillie Belle Farms from shutdown in the wake of coronavirus. He shared with his Facebook fans that he would make "Covid Bunnies" that are dark and milk chocolate with white face masks and white chocolate ones with blue face masks.

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p>It was an incredible success. Shepherd was able to hire back the seven full-time staff who he had let go, has sold 5,000 bunnies and is scrambling with back orders, now restricting purchases to six per customer.

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p>Article content Safe distancing to thwart spread of the virus is what prompted the Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, to go digital with its Easter Egg hunt, using Minecraft but disabling potentially scary game elements like monsters.

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p>"Our primary goal is to preach the gospel, but we also want kids to have fun and enjoy Easter," said Reverend Curtis James.

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p>In New Jersey, Nora was excited that her idea was warmly embraced by so manypeople, with the town's mayor stopping by to watch her fill the kits and the local Lions Club inviting her for lunch "when the whole thing is over."

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p>Her favorite "thank you" was wrapped in gift-wrapped rolls toilet paper, one of the staples that are taken in by panic buyers during the pandemic.

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p>"My mom smiled when the toilet paper came," Nora said. (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien.)

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