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Big Picture Students Hide Lucky Ducks in Village of Kenmore

table of rubber ducks with tags on them

Students in the Ken-Ton Big Picture program have found a fun way to involve the local community!

Back in 2021, Big Picture staff members Michelle Phillips and Stacey Pritchard teamed up for the Miles of Smiles exploratory, a project that involves students and the local community. An idea called the “Lucky Duck” was brought up for this year’s project and the two sprang into action!

Thanks to the Buy Northing site, Phillips and Pritchard were able to secure a large number of rubber ducks. Last week, they held an exploratory session with 12 of their students where they brainstormed sayings and puns to put on a tag and tie them around each duck. On Friday, they went out into the Village of Kenmore and hid all 40 of them.

elephant rubber duck with a joke on the tag

“We really just wanted to spread kindness and smiles throughout the surrounding area,” Pritchard said. “It’s our mission to make sure our community knows what kind and caring students we have here at Big Picture!”

The ducks are hidden on or around Delaware Road from Kenmore Middle School to the Spot Coffee area. Those who find a duck can take a picture and tag the Big Picture program on social media. They can then keep the duck or hide it somewhere new for others to find.

“The students were very excited to hide the ducks, and even more excited to see some of the pictures people took,” Pritchard said. “One student even gave a superhero duck to a mail carrier we passed on the route.”

While a total of 40 ducks were hidden in the Kenmore area last Friday, one of the ducks is a unicorn duck, which Big Picture chose to make an extra special find. They asked members of the community to contact them if they find the unicorn and, in return, they'll be receiving a Big Picture t-shirt and some Bombas socks. The unicorn duck was found over the weekend.

“We are always looking for ways to make a positive difference in the community,” Pritchard said. “The response has been just that, positive. There were so many people on the Kenmore Buy Nothing Facebook group that posted pictures and wrote such kind words about our initiative.”