A ward activity I could probably do. I’d have a committee and lots of help. And ward members are my friends, not strangers. And there is some idea of what and how many to expect.
A primary activity I could do. And have done. I guess an Easter Egg Hunt is a really vamped up primary or ward activity. In a way.
I have done an Easter Egg Hunt before. I was the Fellowship Officer for Phi Theta Kappa at Burlington County College a few years ago and one of my duties was to put on an Easter Egg Hunt for the school and community. At that time, I had a committee: other fellow officers who were there to help, faculty advisors who’d advised about this event in the years before and the school activities chair and student government behind me. I got donations from the different clubs at BCC, the PTK office was full of stuff left over from previous years and I didn’t have to worry about advertising or insurance. The school took care of all that. So this was a pretty easy event to do, although at the time I was somewhat afraid of it too.
This event was a whole different ballgame. First, I had my idea to do it almost too late. But I started running with it. And the more I ran, the more committed I became to it. It was almost as if someone was pushing me along.
First I called the township. They said to send them a letter stating what exactly I am doing and what I need. Plus, I need to get event insurance.
Um, okay. First I tried regular insurance companies but quickly learned that they don’t do events. I tried google and walla! There were plenty to choose from. I chose privateeventinsurance.com. They gave me the cheapest quote, $150 and didn’t throw in hidden fees at the end. The only thing was, I had to have the event on that day. I could have bought cancellation insurance but that would have cost me another $50. I was feeling cheap. Or frugal. Or brave. But, I can say I was also feeling worried about the weather.
It took me a while to push the button and buy the insurance. I knew that once I did, I was committed. I did it. I think I had some extra nudging.
The next thing I had to do was draft up a letter for the township. They would provide tables and chairs and whatever equipment I needed provided they have it. I also had to tell them what my plans were for the park.
Once that was done, I drafted a letter to businesses and to households in my neighborhood asking for donations: candy, eggs, fillers, raffles. I got lots of good responses from people in my neighborhood. One woman tracked down my email address from someone else in the neighborhood whom we knew but I didn’t know this woman knew my daughter and made the connection. It just happened that one day out of the blue I got an email from someone I’d never met saying they asked this other person for my email address. Huh? I guess some people are starting to get to know me. That’s kinda cool. Anyway, she has a Brownie and a Daisy troop. She rallied them together to get donations of eggs and candy. I came home one day to find a big box full of already filled eggs and additional candy on my porch. When I emailed her to thank her, she said she still had more coming. That was amazing!
Taking the letters to the businesses was only somewhat successful. I found that the process is, you take a letter and give it to the store manager or HR. They file it until it’s time to do the budget for the store or they send it to corporate. Then you wait to hear back from them and if you don’t then call them. I think there is a better chance of getting a donation if the store manager is the one to decide whether to donate rather than corporate. I can say that Target, Wegman’s, Acme, and Toy R Us will not donate. They already give to chosen charities. I am happy to say that the chosen charity for Wegman’s and Acme is Susan G. Komen for the Cure. :)
Staples on the other hand was very helpful. They had a roll of raffle tickets in the office that they just handed me when I gave them the letter and they saved me at least half of my printing costs when I made my flyers. VF Outlet was also giving. They picked out a toy for me to put in my raffle and said to come back if I ever needed anything more.
If I’d started sending out donation letters earlier I might have had a few more businesses able to give. Most had already done their budget for the month and had no more room. A couple had employee issues – one was at a conference and another switching positions. I also might have had more time to ask other places for donations. Rita’s for one. McDonald’s maybe.
I also needed more help with this. If I had a committee I might not have had to pound as much pavement. I could have asked some people to take letters to places on my behalf in addition to what I was doing.
Also, someone mentioned to me that Moorestown’s Easter Egg Hunt is put on by the Moorestown Business Association. I need to see if Cinnaminson has one and see if I can get them on board the next time. That would help tremendously.
Another thought I had to try: make the letters store specific and make a specific wish list. It may be that the store has one or two of the items on the list they can give rather than just something generalized.
Eggs, lots of eggs. I really had no idea how many eggs I needed. I had no idea how many kids would show. Would a lot come because it’s an Easter Egg Hunt or would not many show because it requires money? Plus, this being a different ball game, I had no idea what to expect. But I knew at least 1000 eggs would be a good start. I found that one can order things in bulk from dollartree.com. I found a case of 1000 plastic eggs for $60. Not bad. I could swing that and probably, hopefully, make it up at the event. It did take me a while again to click the buy button because I knew for every $5.00 I spent, that was a child’s donation. But again, something urged me on. And I bought them. The shipping was free to have it dropped at my local Dollar Tree store so I did that. I also ordered a case of colorful pinwheels to use as decoration at the event. The pinwheels were a great addition. I used them to mark boundaries and guide the crowd. It worked and it was pretty to boot! A good investment. Then I went to Oriental Trading Company and bought a bunch of fillers and prizes. I had 12 golden eggs that the kids who found them redeemed for a prize – a little stuffed bunny and a bottle of bubbles. That was fun for them but I think I would double that next year. There were a lot of kids!
I spent my evenings watching my favorite t.v. shows and filling eggs. I borrowed a corner of Joseph’s room to keep everything until the event because it had a lock that Katherine couldn’t open and get into everything.
The last week and 1/2 or so I had about 1600 eggs. Wondering whether that was enough or not I asked a friend who helped out at a different township’s egg hunt. They had 3000! What?! Somehow though, through more kind donations, much of which came from John and Alisa, I ended up with about 2400 eggs. That was a pretty decent number for the first Egg Hunt.
Next year I would have more though. We did have kids who didn’t get much – but then there were those who got a lot. And I told them to share. OH well!
Advertising:
I made signs from software that we have and then printed them out and adhered them to blank lawn signs you can buy at Lowes. They were fine until they got too much rain. I had to go around and repair them a couple times. I think I would still use that method for a couple signs. But the other problem was that they were a bit small once outside. They looked great in my entryway but they were dwarfed once they were put up. I think I would ask Lowes, or freecycle for some pieces of plywood that I would paint and hinge together to have a couple bigger signs.
I made lots of flyers. The schools would only allow me to leave them in the offices so I did that. I also took a bunch to the library. That was a good idea. One woman told me she saw them at the library and took a bunch to her neighborhood and passed them around. Wow! Cool! Rite-Aid took some. They don’t as a policy but let it slide because it was an Easter Egg Hunt for Breast Cancer. :) I passed some out at preschool too and took some to the gym. I was so busy though that I didn’t notice if anyone from preschool came. And I put a couple up at church. I didn’t see anyone from church though. :/
The last week, I papered the neighborhoods surrounding the park with flyers. I think they may have helped too. Next time I need to get some help doing that because there is a whole section of Cinnaminson I didn’t get to.
At the Event:
Mike and Kara made a really cool Welcome sign:
I put different signs around to let people know what was happening:
There was also an event breakdown sign. The one thing I would do differently with that is just say the Egg Hunt will start after lineup rather than: line-up at 11:00 and egg hunt 11:15ish. What happened is we had some rather zealous kids who ran out onto the field while we were trying to get them to the starting location and then it just broke loose. I couldn’t control that and so there were a few kids who didn’t get out to the field fast enough. And there were a couple people who relied on that 11:15 and didn’t have their kids ready. We actually had someone ask for a refund. Unfortunately for her, she asked my very headstrong sister who reminded her that this was a charity event. We don’t give refunds. (I would have given the refund though if she wasn’t appeased by my basket of candy I offered to kids who didn’t get much).
As for the bad start-off, what I had tried to do was send different aged kids in a couple different directions so all would have a chance at the field. Next time I’m going to have one location and some ribbon to block it off. Maybe we can have an Easter Bunny who cuts the string to signal the start of the hunt.
One good thing I did was I designated a separate area for the kids under 5. It needed to be bigger though. There were a lot of them!
I did get to stand in the crowd and watch amazedly at the Egg Hunt in progress and take some pictures. The bullhorn I was using had a microphone that I could speak into. That helped me get the kids who were still lining up out there fast once I saw the impromptu start. But I also thought it would have been fun to have some silly Easter songs playing from it while the hunt was going on. I’ll have to look into that.
The raffles went really well. We had some really nice ones: two Pampered chef baskets donated by Alisa and another woman who does Pampered Chef, a really pretty necklace donated by someone who’d not yet even moved into Alisa’s ward and overnighted it to have it here on time! Two cakes made by Alisa. One woman who won a cake said she was having a big family gathering for Easter and was in charge of desert! How lucky that she won it! We also had buckets of toys, cupcakes, two beach tags – season tags to Ocean City, NJ – because we have to pay to use the beaches here. A basket of earrings and wall whimsy from Aunt Linda. A Pink for the Cure Candle donated by Emma, which I put into a pink Easter basket with some little pink pampering things and chocolate. And a museum pack – one ticket to the Please Touch Museum, Academy of Natural Sciences and the Franklin Institute which I’d redeemed from my recycle points. And a lifetime family membership and 2 free classes for MyGym (a children’s play gym) also redeemed from my recycle points.
The only thing I’d do differently with the raffles, besides try to get more stores to donate them, is to only allow one win per person. We did have a couple people win more than once. My initial thought was they all paid for their tickets and it’s the luck of the draw. But, then I thought, they did all pay for their tickets and it’s fair to spread the wealth. :)
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