Kids race to Onset for post-Easter egg hunt
Apr 15, 2023
This kid wasn’t content with just hunting for eggs. He decided to start a fashion trend while he was at it. Photos by: Sean Flannelly
4-year-old Dean Kenney and 2-year-old Landon Quinn prepare themselves for the main event.
2-year-old Beau Pagnani takes a load off after a tiring morning.
The field full of eggs taunts eager participants before the start.
Volunteers hand-packed the 5000 eggs strewn across Bayview Park.
2-year-old Benjamin Brownell opens an egg on the spot.
Five-thousand eggs, filled by hand with candy over the course of two months. Gone in 10 minutes.
The Onset Bay Association and its legion of volunteers scattered the eggs across Bayview Park the morning of Saturday, April 15 for their annual Easter Egg Hunt. The event was listed online as being from 11:00 a.m. to 11:01 a.m., but it ended up lasting a bit longer than that.
“We want to get up to 10,000 eggs eventually,” said Onset Bay Association Executive Director Kat Jones.
Organizers instructed families to remain on the sidewalk until 11 a.m. sharp, at which time they unleashed the egg-hunting chaos via megaphone. Kids dashed and strolled across the grass, picking up as many eggs as they could fit in their hands and baskets. A few parents rolled up their shirts to serve as makeshift egg baskets.
Most eggs were filled with treats, but a few contained dollar bills, which Jones called “golden eggs.”
After the initial chaos of egg gathering, kids were tasked with returning the empty eggs to be reused next year. Those who returned their eggs got extra candy as a reward for their environmental stewardship.
The Onset Bay Association has hosted an Easter egg hunt annually for about 30 years, Jones estimated.
Although western Christians celebrated Easter a week before the hunt, Jones wanted Saturday’s event to kick off a summer full of outdoor activities.
The egg hunt happened just in time for Orthodox Easter, which fell on Sunday, April 16.
The Onset Bay Association’s next event will be an Earth Day cleanup on Saturday, April 22.
