At the beginning of April, I helped with our community egg hunt. As the social activities in our neighborhood have been non-existent for a couple of years, I was not surprised to find a low turnout. However, those in attendance had a great time.

Advertised in our quarterly newsletter and posted to our neighborhood’s Facebook page, our community egg hunt was on a Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in a cul-de-sac close to our playground.

Had it rained, the invitation indicated that the event would be canceled.

All members of the community were welcome to come as the children, ages 12 and under, hunted for eggs.

Each participating child was asked to bring the following:

• Ten plastic eggs, each filled with a small item (e.g., sticker, coin, trinket, wrapped candy, etc.)
• Basket or container for collecting eggs
• Supervising parent or adult

In helping with this event, I assisted with preparing, setting up, executing, and cleaning up our community egg hunt.

Preparing for our Community Egg Hunt

With the residents invited, we took the extra step to personally notify the residents in the event cul-de-sac. This courtesy was extended to give them a contact name should they experience any issues. Having a one-hour event, we planned the following tentative schedule:

Tentative Schedule

10:30 a.m.: Collect eggs and children’s activity

10:45 a.m.:  Parents and teens hide eggs while children get organized into age groups

11:00 a.m.: Hunt eggs

11:15 a.m.: Open eggs and enjoy the contents

11:25 a.m.:  Conclude with refreshments

To pull off this event, we gathered the following supplies:

• Tent/canopy
• Table
• Tablecloth
• Centerpiece
• Clipboard with resident names and addresses to verify residency
• Pens
• Two egg collection boxes – one for children ages 0-5 and another for children ages 6-12
• Egg hunt book from the library
• Blankets on which children can sit
• Chair(s)
• Water
• Lemonade
• Cookie tray with 84 cookies from Sam’s Club
• Cups
• Napkins
• Cooler
• Plastic trash bag

Setting up for our Community Egg Hunt

Our team of volunteers arrived around 9:30 a.m. We setup the tent and table. Then arranged all the items and waited for the children to arrive.

Executing the Plan for our Community Egg Hunt

10:30 a.m.: Collect eggs and children’s activity

As each participating child arrived, he or she added the 10 filled-eggs to the appropriate box. Then the child came to the blanket where we played a game. At 10:30 a.m., I read the egg hunt story titled, Last One In Is a Rotten Egg.

10:45 a.m.:  Parents and teens hide eggs while children get organized into age groups

While reading the story, adults went to the playground to hide the eggs. The plan was to hide the younger children’s eggs in front of the playground and the older children’s eggs behind the playground. However, with a small showing, all the eggs were hidden in front of the playground.

After the story, which teaches about playing fair, instructions were given that each child was to hunt 10 eggs. We then marched out to the playground to have them line up. Once in place, we gave the signal and sent them hunting.

11:00 a.m.: Hunt eggs

The big ones did a great job helping the younger ones. They wandered all over the place finding all the eggs and making sure everyone received 10 eggs.

11:15 a.m.: Open eggs and enjoy the contents

As they began opening the eggs to find their prizes, we headed back to the tent area for cookies and lemonade.

11:25 a.m.:  Conclude with refreshments

We munched and concluded our community egg hunt by finishing the games we started prior to reading the book. The older children enjoyed figuring out the buzz word from the list of given clues.

Cleaning up our Community Egg Hunt

With a few homeowners coming out to watch the festivities and getting in on the refreshments, we ended a little after the one-hour scheduled time frame. With everything together, tear down was quick.

We packed up the leftover items into the two empty boxes, folded up the table, and took down the tent within 15 minutes. Making sure all the trash was picked up and the area free from debris, we headed home chatting with our neighbors.

My oldest and youngest participated in our community egg hunt and enjoyed the activities, especially the lemonade and cookies. With a plan in place and the supplies gathered, the event was executed as scheduled.

Having the participants bring plastic filled eggs alleviated the element of guessing how many would attend. Also, limiting the event to one hour made this event relatively easy to assemble.

We had a great time at our community egg hunt, and my children are ready for more egg hunts this Easter season. Happy hunting!

Question: What additional activities do you include with your egg hunts?