Local teen takes on a new kind of scavenger hunt

Published 12:00 am Sunday, July 26, 2015

If you see someone having a tea party in a junkyard in early August, don’t worry — it’s all in good, crazy fun.

Ava Holtzman, 15, of Salisbury is putting a team of people together for an event created by Misha Collins, an actor from the show Supernatural.

The event is an international scavenger hunt called The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen. It takes place the week of Aug. 1-8. Teams sign up online at https://gishwhes.com with an entry fee of $18 per person. If teams are under the 15-person requirement, they are added to another group to form a complete team. Basically you can sign up with “as many or as few people as you want” said Ava.

For the scavenger hunt, teams receive a long list of items or tasks to be completed and submitted online using photos or videos. Each of the items is worth a certain number of points. The team that racks up the largest number of points by the end of the week wins. This year’s winning team will take a trip to Costa Rica with Misha Collins. Prizes are also given to runner-up teams.

The tasks can be pretty crazy, such as, “Gummi Bear Historic Site,” “Homemade Vehicle of Mayhem and Destruction” and “Tea Party in a Junk Yard.”

Ava’s father, Seth Holtzman, explained that the scavenger hunt consists of not only humorous and crazy items, but also charitable ones. Some of the charitable tasks have included things like: “Give one of your favorite and most valued objects to a homeless person” or “Get an online or offline CPR certification.”

Ava said she already has 12 team members from recruiting friends and family, including her parents.

She says, “I’m getting more excited about it as it’s getting closer.”

To prepare for the scavenger hunt, Ava and her parents have been looking around town at different venues that could help them with possible tasks. She has also been watching videos submitted on Youtube by teams from previous years to get ideas.

She says she isn’t going into the competition to win but is “just excited to do crazy, fun things with my friends over the summer.”