Over 75 kids jumped into the Gleason Family YMCA pool to see what prizes awaited them inside the thousands of floating Easter eggs.

The third annual YMCA Poolside Easter Egg Hunt was held Friday, April 18 at the Gleason Family YMCA. Instead of hiding eggs filled with sweet treats around a yard or park, the plastic eggs were floating in the pool for kids to swimmingly collect.

“I like that some of the eggs had presents and some of them didn’t, it made it exciting,” said Hannah Peterson.

YMCA Membership Engagement Coordinator Cathy Longfield helped organize the event and said YMCA staff spent hours putting well over 1,000 eggs together, some with prizes and some without.

Kids in attendance were split on what they enjoyed more, finding various toys in the eggs or jumping in the pool and collecting as many eggs as possible.

“I was able to find three horse jockeys, four Easter bunnies and one ball,” said Zoey Grace Armstrong.

Longfield said they couldn’t put candy in the eggs or else they wouldn’t float and instead used a variety of small toys as prizes.

When asked what they would choose to put in the eggs had it been up to them, some kids said they would’ve chosen candy, others had slightly different ideas.

“Sugar, just sugar,” said James Kacycock

Other kids said they would’ve chosen toys, which they were able to find.

“I would put sticky hands in the eggs,” Hannah said and she found several of the rubbery hands hiding eggs.

The event began as an outdoor Easter egg hunt according to Longfield and she added that due to the unpredictable New England spring weather, they decided to bring it indoors in 2023.

Since then, the event has grown in popularity with YMCA members and non-members, according to Longfield.

“I think it went well, I think it’s a great opportunity to swim with the eggs and the kids had fun,” she said.