A silly — and secret — club formed during the coronavirus pandemic is on a quest to bring smiles to the faces of kids, and a few adults, while under Michigan’s stay home order.

On Friday, the same day Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer extended the state's stay home order to May 15, several club members paraded through parts of Ferndale in their requisite, full-contained, inflatable costumes.

There was a pink unicorn, followed by a gentle giraffe, a ferocious bear, a swinging stegosaurus, Scooby-Doo and a shark too, a tall pterodactyl, a trotting triceratops, a black-and-white penguin, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, a friendly T-Rex, another penguin, and a one-eyed Minion.

"It's so much fun," said Sarah Ignash, the pink unicorn.

She points her horn and the other characters follow her down the sidewalk.

This motley crew, which calls itself the Ferndale T-Rex Walking Club, takes its unannounced strolls through neighborhoods. There are other characters, too, and a few members have costumes on order.

So, on their next walks, you might see an additional unicorn, more sharks, a polar bear, a gorilla, a Godzilla, an alligator, a hippo, a flamingo, a zebra, and an upside-down clown.

Each character exhibits some personality by how they walk. They offer a wiggle or a wave. Maybe even a spin. Some jaunt, others lumber. It's all part of the magic of taking on another persona for a while.

Most members of the T-Rex walking club are also members of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, a 150-something-year-old private social and charitable organization in which the top officers hold serious-sounding titles with the words "grand" and "exalted" in them.

The T-Rex club has its own set of rules.

You must be invited; have an enclosed, inflatable costume; wear a face mask; and you can never, ever tell anyone where — or when — the group is going to go walking.

There are no grand titles, but everyone in the club, you might say, has an inflated sense of humor.

The point of the parade, is to cheer up the community during otherwise gloomy times and get children and adults to smile, said Oscar Renautt, who heads the Elks public relations committee.

Ignash's husband, David Ignash, is the gray shark, not to be confused with the two other sharks in the group.

The couple — ages 42 and 51 — own All American Pet Resorts Lake Shore in Roseville, which is now closed because of the pandemic, so they have some time on their hands.

Sarah Ignash said she was inspired to start the club when she saw an article about a couple of adults in another state who entertained cooped-up kids by walking around in their inflatable T-Rex costumes.

"Well," Ignash thought, "I have a T-Rex costume."

She's had it for years, and she'd occasionally show up somewhere in it for a laugh. For Christmas, a friend also gave her a unicorn costume. Then, she posted the article in a Facebook Group for Ferndale residents and they thought it was a good idea.

Folks asked her to organize an event, so she did. It was right after the stay-at-home order, and within two hours, close to 200 people were interested. It quickly got out of control.

Ignash decided that it was a totally crazy idea, and irresponsible to create crowds of people during a pandemic, so she canceled the event, and started over. Instead, she created a private group and invited just a couple of friends to join her.

They went on a walk in costume, and then another, and another, adding a few friends — and characters — each time.

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The costumes are so big that they naturally require the walkers to space out about six-feet apart, a social distancing requirement of the governor's order. They also don't want to spread the virus so they wear masks.

Visibility inside isn't so good either, and it can get hot inside the costume.

So they don't walk for too long.

"But, it's fun because kids really freak out," Ignash said. "They see us coming, or they hear other people talking about us coming, and kids freak out. Its fun, just so much fun."

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.

T-Rex Walking Club

To find out more about the Ferndale T-Rex Walking Club, you can email Sarah Ignash at sarah@aaprlakeshore.com or the Ferndale chapter of the Elks at info@elks1588.com.