BILLINGS — Madison Martinez, 22, spends her Saturday night before Easter Sunday hiding Easter eggs filled with candy for her business.
"I start preparing the day after Easter ends. However, I start taking orders and doing everything else such as filling eggs, mapping the city and just getting things organized exactly a month out from whatever Easter day is that year," Martinez said Saturday.
Egg My Yard started six years ago when Martinez was still in high school. She wanted to go to a concert with her best friend and needed some money. Her mother originally had the idea for them to hide eggs for money. After some consideration, the duo decided to try the business out.
“A six-year business started because we were just messing around trying to get concert tickets,” she said. “I’m just happy that we get the opportunity to give back to the Billings community because we do not take for granted everything that they’ve done for us.”
Martinez is now the only owner and operator of Egg My Yard. She said this year the business had a "record-breaking year" and hid around 10,000 Easter eggs from Billings to Huntley. Martinez offers packages of hiding 50 eggs for $40, 100 for $70 or 150 eggs for $100.
“We have watched these kids grow from being like toddlers into full-grown kids now. So it’s really like a fantastic story that you get the chance to watch families grow. It was something that I never thought I’d enjoy or even experience from our first year looking onto it now,” Martinez said.
While Martinez said she has many favorite memories from the last six years, one of the most memorable was from the weekend before this Easter this year. Egg My Yard partnered with Mary's Magical Moment, a nonprofit that helps families with travel and medical expenses, to help Maylin Bell and her family celebrate Easter early. Maylin has a rare form of pediatric brain cancer and is celebrating Easter in Disney World with her family.
“This year we had a really incredible opportunity to egg a home of a family whose daughter is battling brain cancer,” she said. “Chronic illness is something that’s really important to me because I struggle with chronic illness and I really just felt touched by this story. And I talked with Laura, the foundation owner, and I said yeah this is something we really want to do.”
Martinez said if you're interested in booking for next year, reach out to the business Facebook page Egg My Yard.
