Easter egg hunt celebrates fifth year

Hundreds of kids will head to the city park and Prairie Trails Park March 31 to hunt for Easter eggs.

Event organizer Tara Johanneson and her husband, Jason, thought five years ago that Tea could use an Easter egg hunt.

“Because my husband and I have little kids and during that Easter break we were looking for something for them to do and we found ourself trying to find some (egg hunts). There were plenty out there but there were a lot of people at them and we realized the demographics of Tea are so young that we just thought it would be really successful in Tea,” Johanneson said.

The first year they had about 100 people preregister and about 200 people came. This year, they are expecting about 500.

Johanneson encourages people to preregister at www.teaparkandrecreation.com. However, preregistering is not necessary. It just gives them an idea of how many eggs to prepare.

For the past four years, the Boy Scouts have filled the eggs. This year she did it a little differently and asked for volunteers on the registration form. In addition to her husband, Angela Kamps, Rachel Kloos, Linda Stucky, Skye Bork, Andrew Bork, Katie Sherwood, Maria Wengert, Jan Paulson and Kim McDaniel have volunteered most years if not all of them.

Johanneson secures sponsorships from local businesses to buy the candy and eggs and pay for giveaway items and activities like bouncy houses.

In addition to the Easter egg hunt, kids can also bounce in the bouncy houses, get their faces painted by the Girl Scouts, meet the Easter bunny and clowns from the El Riad Shrine. Parents can also have their children’s eyes tested from KidSight of SD Lions. They also do some Easter basket giveaways from the names that were preregistered.

This year’s Easter egg hunt is March 31 with 8-10 year olds hunting at Prairie Trails Park at 10 a.m. The walking to 2 year olds and the 3-4 year old hunts are at the city park at 11:15 a.m. The 5-7 year old hunt is at 11:30 a.m. at the city park.

Johanneson and her volunteers start setting up the hunts about 8 a.m. the day of the event.

In all of the years of the Easter egg hunt, they have not moved the hunts or the date.

“We have not ever actually done it, maybe we should have. We have done it in the rain and the snow and the wind. We never know what’s going to happen,” she said.

Since the hunt is Easter weekend, they see a lot of people from out of town.

“Initially we thought of it as a community event but our community continues to grow and grow. It is Easter weekend so people bring family that are in town with them. We get people from all over the place. Predominantly the people that attend are from Tea or the Tea area,” she said.