Kids Gather More Than 13,000 Eggs During Community Easter Egg Hunt

Words..What words sum up the overwhelming support for the DeWitt Easter Egg Hunt this year?! I’ve tried to find them and they haven’t come easily. Appreciative, overwhelmed, thankful, blessed, emotional, elated, overjoyed, oh and did I mention THANKFUL?!

No matter the words used by others to describe our little city throughout the year, our community pulled together once again to make this year’s Easter Egg Hunt a success and I couldn’t be more proud and thankful! We truly live in one of the most thoughtful and generous cities there are in my opinion!

Weeks leading up to the event, we began stuffing eggs with hopes of having at least as many as last years total of 7,000 eggs. Well, it’s an absolute honor to say that we had a total of 13,318 eggs this year and over 200 prizes! All of which wouldn’t have been possible without the outpouring support of our community members and businesses! Do you know how long it takes to place that many eggs at the park?! Ha! With the help of Patricia Murray, ArCo Delta Aid Foundation, and the PCCUA-DeWitt Student Ambassadors we were able to get them all out just in time as local youth and their parents started arriving.

The Easter Bunny made a special appearance and the kiddos were super excited to see him and have their pictures taken with him! Well, most were and some shyed away from him.

A total of 170 youth aged 0 – 12 years registered for this years event. With the anticipation growing as the clock neared 10:00 am, the youth were in their spots and ready to hit the ground running at the sound of the horn. Let me say this, if you’ve never heard the sound of 170 kids running after Easter Eggs you’ve missed a sound that warms your heart and leaves you in awe!

As crazy as it may seem, within fifteen minutes some of the kids were already counting how many eggs they had found and within twenty-five minutes all of the kids were done hunting and were excited to tell how many they found. After reporting how many they had found, they made their way to the prize table. Yes, every single child walked away with a prize! They may not have been extravagant prizes, but every single child took home not only their eggs and what was inside them, but they took home a prize as well. All of the prizes were courtesy of Patricia Murray and myself and the American Legion Auxiliary. There were also prize baskets for the oldest boy and gil with the most eggs and the youngest boy and girl with the most eggs.

A huge THANK YOU to Patricia Murray for everything! Thank you also to Spirit of ‘76 4-H Club, Debbie Childers, Joseph and Christina Starks, Cladys Simpson, Shelia Shook, Aubrey McGhee, Nancy Briggs, Sondra Turner, and 420 & Turnrow for your generous donations of eggs, candy, and money to buy more candy. Thank you also to ArCo Delta Aid Foundation and all their volunteers, as well as the PCCUA-DeWitt Student Ambassadors, for volunteering your time to make this years event a huge success! And a special thank you to the DeWitt Police Department for coming out and the City of DeWitt for allowing us to host the event at the City Park!

I’d like to leave you all with this...the past two events have been a whirlwind and I’m forever grateful for EVERYONE in our community for supporting it so that the kiddos can have a great morning of hunting eggs, finding prizes, winning prizes, and spending the day with their families at the park.