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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Lydia Stephens

Six-year-old Max creates treasure hunts to cheer up children in Abertridwr during lockdown

A six-year-old boy has kept the community spirit high during lockdown by creating things for people to find on treasure hunts.

Max Treherne has been nominated as one of WalesOnline's Covid Heroes for his special efforts during the pandemic in the area where he lives.

The little boy from Abertridwr, Caerphilly, created handmade small clay stones with pictures on and hid them as part of a community trail for other families to find.

What started out as a fun hobby for Max to keep himself busy during the first national lockdown has now turned into an amazing community activity.

The clay stones Max and his brother hide in Abertridwr (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

WalesOnline has teamed up with Amazon, whose own staff went above and beyond to keep deliveries going through lockdown, to recognise Covid Heroes in Wales.

We want to hear about the Covid Heroes of your community. All we need you to do is fill in the form below and nominate a person, organisation or group that has made a difference to your life in 2020.

If you can't see the survey, click here https://form.jotform.com/203034765880356

We don’t want to pick a winner - they’re all winners as far as we’re concerned - but we will contact as many of your heroes as possible to shine a spotlight on them in December.

Max received lots of nominations as part of our Covid Heroes campaign and mum Natalie said the response from the community has been overwhelming.

"He started it just to give him a purpose to keep him happy," she said.

"He made some dinosaur fossils for fun and he said 'Why don't we hide them for people to find?'

"So we hid them and let people in our Facebook community group know about it. So many people were messaging me and sharing pictures.

"It made him so happy he wanted to do it again."

Max (left) with his brother Jayden (right) (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

Since then, Max has made and hid the fossil stones around his community with the help of his older brother Jayden Treherne, 10, every week.

Natalie said Max, although full of energy and conversation when you get to know him, is very shy, so would go out in the morning or later in the day to avoid bumping into anyone when he hid his clay stones.

Natalie said the amount of people that have responded to the clay fossil treasure trail has been amazing, and Max is so happy that his fossils have given people something fun to enjoy in the community.

"It is for him but also for the other children. The response he has had when they find them is what has kept him wanting to do it.

"He knows he is making people happy but he doesn't understand the breadth of what he has done. We are completely overwhelmed."

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