Kipling Leisure Services held its first-ever Winter Scavenger Hunt on Feb. 16 and 17.
Fifteen clues were listed on Feb. 16 on the Town of Kipling’s website and participants had to go out and try to solve the clues and take pictures of each, and then submit them to Kipling Leisure Services. Out of all of the entries received there were three winners:
First place winners Amanda, Danika and Spencer Cancade, who won a one-week family pool pass to the Kipling Swimming Pool.
Taking second place was Carol Lyons who won a large pizza.
Coming in third were Myla and Kloe Hill and Kaylee Joorisity, who won a $20 Tim Hortons Gift Card.
“The Winter Scavenger Hunt was an idea that we came up with in response to the COVID lockdown and the restrictions that everyone has been experiencing,” explains Susan Hengen, Kipling Leisure Services manager.
“The kids had that week off school and families are all around and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of extra things going on, so this idea wouldn’t cost anyone anything to take part,” explained Hengen.
“It would get people out around the community and circulating a bit,” says Hengen, who added, “I think it lifted spirts. It was kind of motivating for people because the one resounding comment was that it was fun. It was a lot of fun.
“They enjoyed going out and having to think about the clues,” Hengen also said.
“What we did notice was that we had specific items in mind for the clues but we did state that we would consider all convincing entries. We had a variety of answers for some questions that were very convincing. It was kind of neat to see people’s different perceptions of what an item was.”
As for doing something like this again, Hengen stated:
“I think we’ll look at the Easter Break doing some sort of an event.
“We were pleased with the amount of entries we received,” said Hengen, “And I think we’ll get a lot more entries the next time around….especially if the weather is better.”
It was also nice to see the different ages of people that were involved. Some did the activity as a family, some kids did it in groups together and some retired people were on their own.
The Cancade family was excited about taking part in the hunt.
They were asked “What was the most fun and the best thing about it?”
“Trying to solve the hints,” said Danika.
“Everything about it,” said little brother Spencer, who added, “cracking the codes!”
“We were excited to take part because we were already thinking about what the answers could be before we even started,” said Spencer.
Their mother said that the kids got some of the answers without her help.
“We each took our turns at taking the photos to be sent in.”
They said they would make use of the one-week pass.
One of the questions was ‘who is the happiest resident’ and that answer was interpreted in many different ways including a dog named Happy. The Cancade family sent in their photo of ‘Bob B. the Snowman’ because he was smiling while shoveling snow and he is always helping out around Kipling.
“We were surprised that we won,” said an excited Danika when her mom told her the good news.
“If there was another scavenger hunt held, we would take part again,” says the whole family.
