‘Trying to have a little fun.’ Outdoor clock counts down to end of NC stay-at-home order
A Huntersville woman’s special outdoor clock helps her neighbors keep track of when North Carolina’s stay at home order may finally end.
Angela Parker’s digital clock counts down the days, hours, minutes and seconds left to Gov. Roy Cooper’s order. On Thursday, Cooper announced that order was extended from April 29 to May 8.
Parker said she’s just one part of a larger neighborhood effort to keep life on the cheerier side during the pandemic.
The clock sits on a pedestal outside her and her husband, Jeff’s home in the Wynfield neighborhood. The couple has an 18-year-old daughter, Emily.
Parker added a 2-square-foot educational display that she changes each morning — inspiring children and their parents to keep coming back.
Parker creates an outdoor Countdown to Christmas clock each winter. When Mecklenburg County’s COVID-19 stay at home order began March 26, she simply adjusted the theme and brought the clock out again.
She updated the clock March 30 when Cooper issued the statewide order, and she adjusted the clock yet again Thursday afternoon when Cooper extended the order.
“We Can Do It!” reads the message above the clock. “Stop the Spread!”
One of Parker’s recent displays showcased a farm and a garden, with figurines that included a farmer, pig, cow, rabbit and veggies.
Other displays offered facts about the sun and showcased her husband’s eighth-grade rock collection.
Her Make Lunches for Our Homeless Neighbors display included cans of tuna and other food and snacks. Neighbors were invited to put the items into Ziploc bags for Block Love Charlotte to give to the homeless.
And her Earth Day display on Wednesday highlighted a Concord Girl Scout troop’s Silver Award project, “Saving the Bees.”
“Every day, she will have a very creative display with inspirational notes, dioramas, fun activities, fun facts — even a wild display of camels for hump day Wednesdays,” neighbor Beth Kemp told the Observer.
“It is a very encouraging way for her to communicate the necessity of staying home and the importance of doing our part to battle this virus,” Kemp said.
Said the 51-year-old Parker: “We’re just trying to have a little fun, change the scenery and have a little something different out there.”
Neighbors have put up decorations and Easter displays and created sidewalk chalk art, she said. One forged an exercise path for children.
“There are a lot of good things going on out here,” she said.