| Published March 30th, 2022 | A sunny Saturday greeted this year's Spring Festival and Egg Hunt | | By Vera Kochan | | A gorgeous day brought enthusiastic egg hunters on March 26 to Moraga Commons Park. Photo Vera Kochan | After two years of hiding in his COVID-free hutch, the Easter Bunny was back at the Moraga Commons Park on March 26 spreading love and multi-colored, plastic eggs on the lawn in front of the band shell for kids to find.
The Moraga Junior Women's Club presented this year's 39th Annual Spring Festival, last held in 2019, to a larger than average crowd. Online, the $15 tickets were sold to 280 participants, while an estimated additional 150 tickets were sold on site.
Besides the main event (the egg hunt) there were games, face painting, bounce houses, crafts, food/beverages, a photo op with the Easter Bunny, a Moraga Police Department car and a Moraga-Orinda Fire District engine.
The egg hunt was broken into three groups: ages 0-2; ages 3-4; and ages 5-8. Before each group's turn, hunters were instructed to keep a look out for an egg with markings on the outside, because a special prize of a large Easter basket filled with candy and other goodies would go to the finder.
The event was BYOB (Bring Your Own Basket), and the "baskets" ran the gamut between the traditional to purses and even paper bags - whatever did the job. Roee (2,5) from Lafayette, managed to gather 15 eggs into his basket, although Mom and Dad admitted to helping him until he understood the concept. Roee discovered that the eggs held various stickers, tattoos, hand stamps and tiny toys.
Friends Andrew and Cooper both (4,5) had varying game plans with regards to how many eggs they would find. A rather conservative figure of "50" was discussed before a loftier goal of "all of them" was decided upon.
Orinda sisters Josie (7,5) and Dulany (5) had an every-girl-for-herself outlook. Their mom explained that Dulany wasn't too thrilled about participating in the egg hunt, because she felt that her older sister would get more eggs. However, once it was their group's turn to hunt, Dulany was grabbing eggs from left and right like a human vacuum.
On a beautiful, sunny Saturday where masks were a thing of the very recent past, everyone had an egg-ceptionally good time.
The city of Orinda will hold its free Spring Egg Hunt, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Orinda, for toddlers to second-graders at 11 a.m. April 16 at Orinda Community Center Park. | | Photo Vera Kochan | | | | | | | | | | | |