Spring may have yet to flash all its blooming hues, but the colorful tradition of children's spring egg hunts is alive and well in Carroll County.
Westminster Department of Recreation and Parks recreation program specialist Robin Cherney said that a spring egg hunt has been held for more years than she can determine. This year, the Westminster City Egg Hunt will begin at 10 a.m. April 12 with pre-hunt festivities at Westminster City Park.
"We will have music, food to purchase and the bunny petting zoo," Cherney said. "We'll also have face painting, raffles and then of course the Easter Bunny will be there."
The egg hunt is appropriate for children ages 1 through 8 and will be divided into two separate hunts, with ages 1 through 4 hunting at 10:30 a.m. and ages 5 through 8 hunting at 11:30 a.m., according to Cherney.
Most of the plastic eggs will be filled with candy, but Cherney said there will special prize eggs within each age group that will be redeemable for special prize baskets.
The Westminster City Egg Hunt is free and no prior registration is required, but Cherney said children should bring their own basket or bag for holding the eggs they find.
Westminster will also attempt something a little different for the second year in a row, according to Cherney, a Twilight Egg Hunt for children ages 9 through 12 on April 17. Taking place just before dark at King Park, the twilight hunt will feature glow-in-the-dark plastic eggs and the first 100 children to arrive will receive free flashlights, beginning at 8 p.m.
"[The Twilight Egg Hunt] is for those kids that have outgrown the regular egg hunts where you just run and grab them. It's just a fun, alternative to the traditional egg hunt that will be more challenging for that age group," Cherney said. "It's our goal to have 2,000 eggs, hopefully more, that will glow in the dark."
Last year, Cherney said, the evening egg hunt wasn't quite an actual twilight event because the city was not able to acquire the glow-in-the-dark eggs necessary, but was still a success, with more than 200 children turning out for the event.
As with the daytime egg hunt for younger children, there will be special prize eggs redeemable for prize baskets, according to Cherney, and while the event is free, participants are encouraged to bring a bag or basket for collecting their eggs.
Between the two egg hunts, the Westminster Department of Recreation and Parks will hide 12,000 plastic eggs, according to Cherney. It's a lot of eggs to stuff with candy, and Cherney said it would be impossible without the help of volunteers, who had already begun stuffing eggs at press time.
"Currently, we have about 5,000 eggs already filled thanks to Farmers and Merchants Bank. They were so kind and very quickly filled the eggs," she said. "Then we have Utz Real Estate and they are filling between 4,000 and 5,000 eggs."
This is the first year that Farmers and Merchants Bank, in Westminster, helped out with the egg hunts, according to Branch Manager Deborah Zepp, who said that she and the tellers who stuffed the eggs hope to do it again next year.
"We stuffed them here behind the teller line," Zepp said. "I had it in my head that 2,000 eggs was all we were going to do but they got all those done in one night. I called back and we got the other 3,000 done in a day and a half. I was going to ask for more, but you don't want to get burned out."
In Manchester, the Easter Adventure Egg Hunt will begin at 10 a.m. sharp at Charlotte's Quest Nature Center, and children old enough to walk through age 12 are recommended to show up by 9:45 a.m., according to Marcia Bogash, treasurer of the Manchester Parks Foundation.
The 4,000 eggs in the hunt will be divided into different regions by age group, according to Bogash, with children through age 3, ages 4 through 6, ages 7 through 8 and ages 9 through 12 all hunting in their own roped off area for fairness' sake.
"Every egg will be stuffed with candy and some with stickers," Bogash said. "There will also be a big prize egg in each age group and there is a big, really nice basket, candy and games for whoever finds the prize egg."
