OUR STORY
IT STARTED WITH A SIMPLE IDEA
Hide & Keep Events grew out of a free community Buddy Hunt in a small Ohio town.
The original idea was pretty simple: I thought I could hide maybe 20 little collectible figurines — our “Buddies” — each week, give local families something fun to do, and send a few kids home smiling with something they found and got to keep.
No complicated rules. No admission fee. Just families getting outside, exploring their community, and experiencing that little burst of excitement that comes with finding something unexpected.
Then I launched the Facebook page.
Just four days later, it had already reached 77,000 views in our small community.
I knew immediately we were going to need a lot more Buddies.
What I didn’t know yet was just how big this little idea was going to become.
FROM 20 BUDDIES TO THOUSANDS
In our very first season, we learned more than we ever could have imagined.
What started as an idea to hide around 20 Buddies a week quickly grew into events where we now regularly hide at least 200 collectible figurines at a time.
And our special nighttime events have grown even bigger — with some featuring as many as 2,000.
Those night hunts quickly showed us just how much excitement a glow-in-the-dark event can create.
Every event taught us something new: what gets people excited, how to promote a hunt, how to manage larger crowds, how much variety matters, where signage helps, what keeps things fair and safe, and what makes families want to come back again.
As the hunts grew, so did the online community surrounding them. Our social media content now averages roughly 300,000 views each month, with families following along for new collectible reveals, upcoming events, photos, and the reactions of kids finding their newest treasures.
MORE THAN A HUNT
In a town of only about 1,100 people, some of our events have already drawn more than 500 participants.
But some of our favorite moments have nothing to do with the numbers.
We’ve watched kids who may never have met otherwise stop to show each other what they found, compare their collections, and trade Buddies. We’ve seen families help other families search, point children in the right direction, and celebrate finds that weren’t even their own.
People have told us they come back to our Facebook page after an event simply to look through the photos of children proudly holding their finds.
Others have told us they love being in town during a hunt because they can hear the laughter, giggles, and squeals of kids when they find one.
Sometimes you can hear it from blocks away.
That’s when we realized this had become much more than a hunt.
It had become something the whole community could enjoy — whether they were searching, helping, trading, watching, or simply smiling when they heard a child yell:
“I FOUND ONE!”
PUT GOOD OUT THERE
Somewhere along the way, our mission became very simple:
Put good out there.
Our community embraced that mission right along with us.
Wonderful people have volunteered their time, helped with events, contributed supplies, and purchased filament and other materials through our Amazon Wish List so we could continue keeping the original Buddy Hunt free for local families.
The support has been incredible.
But as the program continued to grow, one thing became clear:
An event of this size simply isn’t sustainable through personal funding and donations alone — especially as it continues to grow.
We didn’t want to make the Buddy Hunt smaller.
We wanted to find a way to keep it growing.
AND THAT’S HOW HIDE & KEEP EVENTS WAS BORN
We took everything we learned during that first season — the successes, the mistakes, the logistics, the promotion, the signage, the rules, the crowd management, and all those little details you only learn by actually doing it — and turned it into Hide & Keep Events.
Our goal is to make it easy for campgrounds, parks, churches, festivals, community organizations, and other destinations to create their own Hide & Keep experience without having to figure everything out from scratch.
You choose your collection and the size of your event.
We provide the collectible figurines, promotional materials, signage, rules, guidance, and tools to help you bring it all together.
By growing Hide & Keep Events, we can help other communities create the same kind of excitement while also helping fund the free community program that started it all.
FROM OUR COMMUNITY TO YOURS
A Hide & Keep event gives your guests something to do, something to find, and something to take home.
It encourages families to explore your property, creates excitement throughout the event, and gives people one more reason to participate, share their experience, and remember their visit.
And for the person who finds one?
It’s theirs to keep.
Sometimes the simplest ideas really are the most memorable.
WANT TO SEE WHERE IT ALL STARTED?
If you’d like to follow along with our story — or simply see the experience for yourself — visit our original community
Andover Buddy Hunt on Facebook.
You’ll find new collectible reveals, event announcements, community reactions, and plenty of photos of the families and kids who inspired Hide & Keep Events in the first place.
FOLLOW OUR COMMUNITY BUDDY HUNT ON FACEBOOK
HERE
READY TO CREATE YOUR OWN?
Bring the experience to your campground, park, church, festival, organization, or community.