Butte College student Nate Cobb used the social media app FADE to start his own Easter egg hunt on Sunday.
It all started with a post on Friday by Cobb with the caption, “30 comments or 30 up votes, and I will hide golden cash-filled eggs around Chico this Sunday for all you faders!”
The picture received more than 900 up votes, and the hunt started Sunday morning at 10 a.m. and lasted until 4 p.m.
“I was happy because I don’t get to go home for Easter because I live in SoCal,” said Marlana Rael, a junior nutrition and food science major. “I remember doing Easter egg hunts, and that was really fun. It reminded me of that — being a kid.”
Cobb hid seven eggs with cash inside. The amount ranged between $5 to $50 with a total of around $130, all of which came from his own pocket.
“I was strongly motivated to make people’s day better,” Cobb said. “I wanted to give them and any other students something fun and enjoyable to participate in.”
Six eggs were found by members of the Fade community.
“The other was lost to a curious man at the downtown plaza,” Cobb said
Cobb posted on Fade every hour with a picture of the location and a brief description of where the egg could be found.
“There were 10 to 15 people (searching for the eggs), but everyone was kind of intense about it,” Rael said. “Everyone was running around and looking in bushes and stuff.”
After the egg was found, the hunters were instructed to post the picture of the egg onto Fade to show that it was found so others could move on to the next one.
“I found two eggs. One had $5 in it, and the other had $10 in it,” said Samara Horton, a senior exercise physiology major. “I was looking all over for so long, and I finally found it. It was pretty exciting to find the egg.”
Cobb tried to remain anonymous for as long as possible, but eventually he was discovered and thanked for his work.
“He went through a lot of work to do this,” Rael said. “He planned it all out, put money in the eggs and painted them gold. All of us were pretty excited about it and grateful that he did it.”
Michael McClurg can be reached at [email protected] or @michaelmcclurg on Twitter.
