By Romy Stephens
An Upper Ferntree Gully woman has been spreading joy throughout her community, by planting teddy bears for children to hunt in a nearby park.
Tilly Esse said she first decided to create a teddy bear hunt in Kings Park because as a mother of three, she knew families would be struggling locked inside due to Covid-19 restrictions.
“I thought what a good idea just as a distraction for little ones because I can’t begin to imagine how difficult it would be to have little ones at home with nowhere to go,” she said.
After gathering the stuffed toys from the local op shop, which had temporarily closed down due to Covid-19, Ms Esse started planting them.
Little did she know, the bear hunt would soon become a huge hit among locals.
“I think I had 48 that I put out and then every day I was putting out three or four more because I could hear the kids counting them,” she said.
“I thought I’m going to trick them, I’m going to put some more out.
“I kept on putting more out and I was putting things like monkeys hanging over the trees and snakes siding through the bushes.”
Ms Esse has now planted 139 toys and said she noticed other people had also added their toys to the bear hunt.
She has become so dedicated to the initiative, that she even makes an effort to keep the scattered bears dry.
“I go along and I dry the bears if it’s been raining,” she said.
“Every couple of days I go along and give their fur a rub and just clean them up.”
The hunt has also extended to her own home, with the planting of a giant Winnie the Pooh bear and miniature Piglet out the front that she keeps dry by putting an umbrella over when it rains.
But something that Ms Esse is most proud of is the signs she pinned up on a lamp post out the front of her house, which thanks workers on the frontline of the Covid-19 crisis.
The sign, developed with the help of Ms Esse’s partner Ken, includes a thank you to workers such as nurses, medical staff, teachers, aged care staff, police and more.
It also has a sign underneath asking people to put a note in Ms Esse’s letterbox if there was anyone she had forgotten on the sign.
“It’s something that I think I wanted to do desperately, the sign was something I had to do,” Ms Esse said.
“I knew I had to do something to thank the medical staff and aged care facilities workers and postal workers.
“I got a letter from the postie on the back of an envelope that said ‘thank you for your appreciation, from your postie’.”
Ms Esse said it had been an “absolute delight” to receive such a positive community response to her initiatives.
She said that despite the pandemic being a tragedy, it was comforting to see people support each other during these difficult times.
“It’s a friendly community but everybody is always in a hurry driving their cars. Now everybody’s walking and we have time for each other, we care for each other,” she said.
“The one upside of the lockdown has been this delightful coming together of community, it’s just fabulous, I love it.”
