HUBBARD — Instead of hopping around town, the Easter Bunny hitched a ride with the Hubbard Eagle to bring Easter cheer to all of Hubbard’s residents Saturday.

Escorted by police Chief Rob Thompson and Mayor Ben Kyle, the Eagle and the Easter Bunny drove through Hubbard to greet people from a safe distance.

“We decided to put this event on so that we could provide a physically distancing-compliant visit from the Easter Bunny, considering no children will have the opportunity to see the Easter Bunny this year due to COVID-19 with all malls and Easter events being closed or canceled,” the Eagle, Isaac Powell, said. “Since having to postpone all of my appearances and school sporting events due to the virus, I’ve been looking diligently on trying to find a way to give back to our community members, families and of course, children during this time of uncertainty.”

Kyle said he was happy to offer this to Hubbard, especially because the Eagle not only is the mascot of the school district, but of the whole city.

“The children in this community need to have some resemblence of normalcy and the Easter Bunny brings everyone joy,” Kyle said.

One family was so excited to see the Easter Bunny that they waited for two hours for a chance to see him.

Todd and Kirsten Coonce’s children, Remi, 16 months, and Deklan, 2, were very excited to see the Easter Bunny.

“With the quarantine, they would not have done this, it’s very beneficial to the kids,” said Todd, who was grateful his kids got a chance to be outside and interact with the community in a safe way. Kirsten mentioned the event, paired with the warm sunny day, brought out all of the neighbors, half of whom she said she never really sees outdoors.

Powell said he was pleased with the turnout both online and in the streets. He went live via Facebook so residents could see where he was going next.

“The event went really well. Many families flooded their yards and sidewalks while almost everyone staying socially distant in their yards. We had reached over 40,000 people on Facebook and viewing from states of Florida to California,” Powell said.

All across the city, children decorated their yards with posters and chalk drawings of the Eagle and Easter Bunny along with inflatable Easter eggs and bunnies.

The duo stopped by the Windsor House in Liberty to see the residents from their windows.

“I was truly blessed to do this, seeing many laughing, smiling, and crying tears of joy all over town. The kids loved it,” Powell said.