By Jasmine Willis
WAYLAND — The Wayland American Legion and Wayland Ladies Legion Auxiliary did an Easter drive-thru candy giveaway for the community children.
On April 11 the local legion gathered some helpers to provide sealed bags of candy and coloring pages to the local children. It was a way to give back to the community.
The Wayland Ladies Legion Auxiliary volunteered with gloves, masks, and other protective gear to hand out the pre-sealed bags of candy and coloring pages to each child as the parents drove up in their cars.
Kevin Mark, Wayland American Legion post commander told this local reporter that the drive-thru thing was his idea to bring joy to the children on Easter.
“The legion is very important to the community. Even though it is a different world right now we still wanted to do something for the kids. The veterans know how to adapt to these kinds of situations. We wanted the community to know we are still here. We are still trying to do what we can to help,” he said. “This is the first time we ever did anything like this, so we don’t know how it will all turn out. We were doing all the advertisement for this online, since we didn’t want to run out of candy bags in the first few minutes.”
Mark mentioned how someone dressed like the Easter Bunny would be there to cheer on the children as the parents drove up in the vehicles. The Wayland Police would be there to make sure everything went smoothly. Parents were told not to get out of vehicles as they
drove up to get the sealed bags of candy.
Lyda McDonald was worried she wouldn’t get to be the Easter Bunny after the Easter Egg Hunt had to cancel. This was her way of being able to do the one thing she looks forward to and spread joy to all the other local children.
“She (Lyda) had been really looking forward to being the Easter Bunny. She is very happy to be able to still do it. This is our way of being able to still bring Easter to the community. We are doing what we can to lift up everyone’s spirits in this time,” Judy Perkowski, Wayland Ladies Legion Auxiliary member said. “The community was very happy to see the Easter Bunny today. We were happy to help in some way.”
Wayland American Legion has been doing some updates and repairs to the building as well during this shutdown.