By Lillian Aynes. Year after year, the Candler Park Neighborhood Organization puts together the annual egg hunt, which is well-loved throughout the local community.
This spring, the community gathered in Candler Park on March 29 to celebrate with an egg hunt and candy. Volunteer Director Sydney Boggess said the event has received positive feedback from the community, adding “Everyone always loves the event and are so grateful for the volunteers. It’s a really fun day and a great way to bring in the spring season.”
This year, the tradition expanded from an egg hunt to a larger gathering with even more activities for the children. (Paragraphs in italics are quotes from Boggess.)
This year we received an expanded budget from CPNO that allowed us to have more activities than just the egg hunt. This year we had arts and crafts, face painting, seed planting, and kites to play with. I’m hoping to continue to make the egg hunt a larger community event with new activities that allow us to enjoy the spring season.
The annual egg hunt is a great way for people to have fun, while also building a community.
It is harder than ever to find and build community. It is so important that we can all find ways to meet our neighbors and build connections. Having accessible, neighborhood wide activities and festivals really brings us all together and can be a catalyst for making other improvements in CP.
Loyal volunteers and sponsorships make it possible for this tradition to continue. From initially funding the event to filling up plastic eggs with candy, Boggess said it takes a team of people to help everything come together.
Volunteers and sponsorships have been passed down by word of mouth and through mom groups for years. We are so lucky to have Candler Park Neighborhood Organization, Cynthia Baer, and Candler Park Market donate to make this event a success. Every year, a group of moms get together to stuff the eggs. It takes 10 people, almost 4 hours to stuff over 10,000 eggs. There are 9–56 qt sized containers that are full of eggs each year.
Boggess said her favorite part of the event is seeing the kids find the special golden eggs that the volunteers hide.
Each year, we hide 3 extra-large, extra-special ‘golden eggs. If you find one, you win a large chocolate bunny. I love seeing how excited the winners are to receive their prize.
She hopes people will continue to love the egg hunt and give back to the community through volunteering.
I hope people appreciate the effort that goes into planning and executing events like these. I hope next year more people are moved to volunteer their time to make it a bigger success. But of course, I want everyone to have a fun and enjoyable day.