Hours of preparation.
An eternity of waiting.
Mere minutes of delight, as youngsters dashed into the fields surrounding El Portal Middle School for the annual Escalon Kiwanis and Key Club-sponsored Easter Egg Hunt.
Friday, April 25 saw the gathering of many Escalon High School Key Club members at the Saron Lutheran Church for a marathon egg-dyeing day, working to make sure there were plenty of colorful, decorated Easter eggs to hide on Saturday morning for the throng of eager children to dash and find.
Some 2,500 eggs were donated for the cause by SKS Enterprises and vats of color were used for dipping on Friday, the Key Club students using their first day of Spring Break to do some community service.
This year, in addition to the prize baskets purchased by the Kiwanis Club for giveaway to finders of the specially marked eggs, an effort coordinated by the Escalon FFA resulted in over 120 more baskets donated to the cause. (See story, photo in Living, Page A8). Items were collected at the school over the last few weeks to make up the special Easter baskets and Kiwanis Club officials said they were grateful for the contribution and amazed at the number of baskets collected. That made it possible to present 31 special gift baskets in each of the four age groups in the hunt.
After a Friday morning of coloring, the student volunteers helped Kiwanis Club members place the eggs in four different ‘hunting grounds’ at El Portal early Saturday. The hunt itself was scheduled to go off at 10 a.m., with age divisions designed to make sure every child participating had a chance to find some eggs.
Young Bracco Rissetto, 4, was having fun finding the colorful eggs, carefully placing them in his basket with some help from cousin Emma Bracco, 11. Meanwhile, Teresa Aguilar was busy snapping a photo of her niece, 3-year-old Kristina Mendoza, posing with the Easter Bunny while friends Logan Hudy, 2, and Emily Govia, 3, were checking out candy found in plastic eggs, to go along with the traditional colored eggs.
The Kiwanis Club also provided pastries, coffee and juice for the masses and volunteers were also handing out small gift bags to all participants. A smiling Kaylee Weible, EHS sophomore, was having as good a time as the young hunters, as she made sure no one went home empty handed.
“It’s fun,” she said, as she offered the bags of treats.
The annual hunt has been staged at El Portal for years and, from start to finish, lasts about 15 minutes.
At that rate, kids are finding eggs at a clip of about 166 per minute.
