BELLE FOURCHE—What does it take to pull together an Easter Egg Hunt for an entire town? Well, it starts with stuffing a lot of plastic Easter eggs, a whole lot of support and some fun! Having done the event for the past ten years, the Center of the Nation Business Association (CONBA) has it all figured out! The Easter Egg hunt is scheduled for April 12 at 10:00 a.m. at the soccer fields and is for children ages 0 to 10.
CONBA is in charge of the Easter Egg Hunt, from the planning to the purchasing, they tackle everything. “With the money that we get from dues and from the city we purchase the items that go in the eggs,” said Stacey Raisanen, CONBA. “We are all volunteer hours—no paid people to stuff and distribute!”
Volunteers gathered over four nights to come together and stuff over 6000 Easter eggs—March 25, 26, 27 and upcoming April 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the AmericInn. “We had two 4-H groups, Purple Pride, citizens from the community and high schoolers in here,” said Raisanen.
“Oh, look what I have,” exclaimed Raisanen. She disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a huge yellow Mr. Peeps costume! The room full of helpers laughed with delight at the sight. “Mr. Peep, two Easter Bunnies and if I can find Glenda the Good Witch, maybe she’ll just come along,” she said. They will all be making an appearance at the Easter Egg Hunt!
Planning for the event begins right after the current one ends. “Greg Mondillo (CONBA, Hot Shots) bought three boxes of 48 packages containing 48 eggs each, he went and bought them on clearance last year,” explained Raisanen, “So we have all new eggs going out.”
Raisanen orders all of the toys and candy that go inside of the eggs, but there is also coins and bunny money inside! “There will be $400 in coins for ages five and up. There’s bunny money from Rancho Los Agaves, from Branding Iron and from Tri-State Museum,” said Raisanen. “Bunny money is a coupon, it doesn’t say what you’re gonna get, you just go there and then they’ll have a prize!”
Read the full issue of the Belle Fourche Beacon by clicking here.
