Tualatin is bringing the love back bigger and spreading it wider next month in an expanded fourth edition of the city’s popular annual handblown glass heart hunt.
Stealthy city employees will stash at least 400 of the glass treasures over 300 acres of parks, trails, and natural areas for this year’s Share the Love, doubling the number of hidden hearts from last year and growing the hunting grounds to include several new areas.
Beginning Feb 1, the volunteer crew of about 25 “Heart Ninjas” will divvy up hearts and begin hiding about 100 a week, day by day, in plain sight across their designated locations.
The city upped the number from 175 last year after statewide attention began drawing heart hunters from afar to search Tualatin parks, the way glass float seekers trek to the coast for Lincoln City’s annual summer Finders Keepers event.
“I was surprised at how popular it has become,” Tualatin Program Coordinator Heidi Marx said.
She launched the program in February 2021 as a diversion to get people out of their houses and into the parks after nearly a year of isolating pandemic distancing and encouraging them to explore new places.
She didn’t anticipate the big response nor how much the hearts would mean to some finders.
“We get so many messages (from people saying) that finding a heart gave them hope in such a dark time,” Marx said. “It was very profound for some people. Finding hearts when they’d just lost a loved one felt like a message.”
The city initially used federal economic stimulus money to purchase the hearts and commissioned regional glass artists to create them. This year, there are also personal and corporate sponsorship opportunities for donors to have the Ninjas hide additional hearts and come away with their own to keep.
Olympia, Wash.-based glass blower Timothy Jaquet has about 500 at the ready for the event. Each unique heart is about the size of an adult’s palm.
Jaquet, who created last year’s hearts, is also the artist behind the West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta’s glass pumpkin patch.
Though the city can’t be sure where the hearts end up – there’s no official tracking system – they invite people to share photos of their finds with the hashtag “#sharethelovetualatin” on social media sites.
It’s not always finders-keepers. Some report re-hiding their findings to keep the game going.
Only city staffers can become Heart Ninjas. The small circle ensures that hiding places stay secret.
And, the Ninjas have as much fun with their task as the finders. Most are left in plain site from the ground up, but no higher than (adult) eye level to keep the game fun for kids.
“I think about who’s looking,” Margaret Gunther said. “I see families out there together.”
Gunther, the City of Tualatin Volunteer Coordinator, covers the Tualatin River Greenway Trail behind the library, along the river where she walks year-round on her lunch breaks, and Brown’s Ferry Park, her “absolute favorite.”
She drops a few new hearts multiple times every day to even the odds throughout the week, a tactic employed by her fellow Ninjas. The strategy gives her an excuse to keep going back out to the trail.
“It’s just joyful,” Gunther said. “You find joy where you can,” adding that some of her favorite moments have been hiding a heart on her lunch walk and seeing someone find it on her way back to work.
Jaquet got out of his glass studio and in on the hiding fun last year, too, personally placing 20 hearts he’d donated to the event.
“It’s nice for me to get out and see another city,” he said. “It’s nice to see something that gets people out in general.”
He plans to return to hide more this year and possibly bring his mobile glass studio along as he does for the Pumpkin Regatta, where visitors can learn to make their own glass pumpkins.
It’s an offering he’d like to replicate for Share the Love, but even if it doesn’t come to fruition this year, his glass “mystery hearts” will be available at a deep discount in February on his website, Leftysglass.com as part of the event.
He sells the hearts year-round. The full price they go for is $35-$75, depending on size and complexity.
Look for the Share the Love section on Jaquet’s site for discounted hearts.
For info on becoming an event sponsor contact Marx through the city’s website: tinyurl.com/34urd2fe.
Where to Hunt:
Atfalati Park, Browns Ferry Park, Ibach Park, Jurgens Park, Little Woodrose Natural Area, Lafky Park, Las Casitas Park, Commons Park, Community Park, the Lake of the Commons, Sweek Pond Natural Area, and along city greenway trails including Chieftain Dakota, Hedges Creek, Hi-West, Ice Age Tonquin Trail, Saum Creek, Shaniko, and the Tualatin River Greenway Trail.
