Staff photo by Adam Stewart
Cara Martin, left, and Sarah Eurit pick up pink plastic flamingos out of Tammy Snelling’s yard on Saturday. Eastmoor Senior High Youth Fellowship had put the flamingos in the yard for Snelling’s birthday as part of a fundraiser for a mission in August.
Flamingos help pay for mission
News editor
Pink plastic flamingos have been popping up on lawns around Marion for a couple of weeks, most recently at Tammy Snelling’s home on Walnut Street.
“We had just pulled in the yard after getting back from vacation, and there was a flock of pink flamingos in our yard,” Snelling said. “A couple of friends did it for my birthday. I think they are fun. It makes your birthday special.”
The appearance of the flamingos is a fundraiser for Eastmoor Senior High Youth Fellowship. Members are raising money for a mission trip in August to a Navajo reservation near the four corners of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.
Youth fellowship sponsor Mary Beth Bowers said the idea came from a garage sale in Hutchinson. The yard was covered in plastic flamingos; a friend had paid to have the flamingos placed there, Bowers learned.
She liked the idea, and soon the youth fellowship bought flamingos so it could offer the same kind of hired prank. So far, the group has had three customers, two for birthdays and one for an anniversary. Bowers said a couple of upcoming ones are for no special occasion.
The group charges $20 to put the flamingos in someone’s yard for up to three days. Currently the group has 16 flamigos, but Bowers would like more.
“It would be cool to have like 45 totally covering the yard,” she said.
Flamingo placement isn’t the youth fellowship’s only fundraiser for the mission trip. The group had a car wash Saturday and has had a garage sale.