Egg-cellent conditions for the Easter Parade and Egg Hunt
April 9, 2023 | By Lisa ScagliottiConditions came together on Saturday for one of the best-attended Easter Parades and Egg Hunts in recent memory. Waterbury Rotary Club members put in hours ahead of time filling hundreds of small plastic eggs with foil-wrapped chocolate eggs, Starbursts, Sour Patch candies and more.
Some eggs had messages the finder to come pick out a special stuffed animal or toy prize from the prize table. They spread them out across the grassy field at Pilgrim Park that was cordoned off and marked for age groups up to ages 8-10 to divide the contestants into appropriate egg-hunting groups. Recent sunny, dry weather left the site snowless and amazingly mud-free.
By 10:45 a.m., a crowd of hundreds was making its way from Brookside Primary School down Stowe and Main streets to the park. At the front of the pack were two tall costumed Easter Bunnies waving and giving high-fives.
Carrying all sorts of baskets, buckets and bags, the youngsters — some wearing bunny ears of their own — lined up with parents holding phones at the ready to capture the scene.
Rotary volunteers surveyed the scene and gave the signal shortly after 11 a.m., touching off the brief scramble to collect the eggs, empty their contents and then dutifully return the containers to be used again next year.
The tradition is by far, the quickest of the annual candy giveaways in town, coming between Halloween and the Not Quite Independence Day parade.
Click to enlarge the photos below.
