Wyandanch's brown Easter Bunny shows kids 'bunnies are all colors'
Taniesha Russell drove more than three hours each way to bring her daughter, Teighan, 4, from Maryland to Wyandanch to see Buster Bunny — an Easter Bunny with brown fur meant to give families options beyond Easter Bunnies with white fur.
"I’ve been searching for a brown bunny for a few years," says Russell, 40, who works for the federal government. She saw Buster Bunny featured on TikTok and says she decided it was worth the trip. "I wanted my daughter to know there were also brown bunnies."
Buster Bunny will be indoors at Wyandanch Plaza through Easter Sunday. Families are required to make an appointment in advance online for 15-minute sessions with the bunny, who wears a yellow coat, multicolored tie and colorful light-up eyeglasses.
Jayden Dennis, of North Babylon, poses with Buster Bunny in Wyandanch. Credit: Gary Licker
"This is what we would call Long Island’s chocolate bunny," says Philana Aiken, owner of Easter With Buster. "Everywhere you go there’s a white bunny. There’s nothing wrong with that, but bunnies are all colors. They’re white, they’re gray, they’re brown. I think it’s very important for us to have options and diversity."
Buster Bunny
WHEN | WHERE 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays at Suite 8 Wyandanch Plaza, 8 Station Rd.
COST Packages start at $45 for 15 minutes with the bunny and two digital photos
INFO 631-578-0097, phenomenalreflectionsstudio.square.site
Participants don’t stand in line and take one photo with Buster, Aiken says. Buster interacts with the families during their 15-minute sessions, she says. A photographer takes a variety of photos with different backgrounds according to the chosen package. Packages start at $45 for two hires digital photos taken by a professional photographer, Aiken says. Participants can't take their own photos.
Raine Woods, of Mastic Beach, and Buster choose a new pose for their Easter photos. Credit: Gary Licker
Raine Woods, 9, a third grader from Mastic Beach, had her photo taken with her cousin Jayden Dennis, 11, a sixth grader from North Babylon. Raine says she likes visiting Buster each year. "Whenever I go see him, he always does funny dances, and he does funny poses," she says.
Says Jayden’s mother, Tasha Campbell, 47, an accountant, "He makes us laugh. And the pictures always come out beautiful." She says she’ll be urging her son and Raine to return each year. "I say, ‘You know what, let’s continue the tradition until you guys are tired of going.’"
Russell says she wound up purchasing the biggest package of photos of Teighan. "I’m not going to choose — give me all of them," she says she told Aiken. And she says, like Campbell, she hopes to create a tradition. "This is our first year," she says, "but we are definitely coming back."
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.