PORTSMOUTH — It wasn’t a bird, nor a plane, but is was a helicopter. The big, blue helicopter made a safe landing into Mound Park on Saturday bringing a very special guest, none other than the Easter Bunny for the 17th annual Portsmouth Area Jaycees Easter Egg Hunt.
Thousands of eggs were spread across Mound Park and the eggs will be separated by age groups up to age 12. The eggs were filled primarily with candy, with the exception of a number of special eggs which provided a special prize to the child who came to claim the prize.
Prizes consisted of coupons to local restaurants and children-themed Easter baskets.
Kenny Scarberry, president of the Portsmouth Area Jaycees, said the kids were happy, which is what matters most.
“We just did the 17th annual Portsmouth Area Jaycees Easter Egg Hunt here at Mound Park, and had a very good turn out today, with a lot of happy of kids, and that’s good,” Scarberry said. “We teamed up with LifePoint Church, Washington Nile Township came out and they hooked up the generator and they helped land the helicopter. The Bookmobile was here. Medflight was here, and they play a big part in getting everything here. Care Source was here, and they are at almost all of our events.”
Woodforest Bank and Walmart gave a monetary donation to the Jaycees’ event as well.
“A lot of people stepped up this year to help out,” Scarberry said. “It was over $1,000 altogether to host this event, and that is just with the cost of the candy. We had the eggs already, and then LifePoint actually donated a lot of eggs that they had, and we had a lot of eggs. We had the eggs, and just needed the candy, so we have more than $1,000 worth of candy out there for the kids to enjoy.”
Gayla Dickerson of Portsmouth, said her son Graeson really enjoyed the Jaycees Easter Egg Hunt, and that the event was nice and safe for the children who participated.
“This was very nice. My son had a great time, no children were hurt at all, and I am really glad about that,” Dickerson said.
Sandra Dougherty, also of Portsmouth, brought her daughters Vera and Sophia out to Mound Park on Saturday. Dougherty said it was a wonderful experience.
“This was wonderful. I love that they have it every year. There is always such a good turnout, and it is wonderful community involvement for the kids, and is such fun for them,” Dougherty said. “The girls love it. They are eager to see the Easter Bunny. They wanted to see him land, but I don’t know if we caught that.”
Katie Clark, external vice president of the Portsmouth Area Jaycees, said this year’s event saw remarkable attendance, and ran smoothly.
“It has been great teaming up with LifePoint to provide this for the children, I can’t even give you a number of the people that are here today,” Clark said. “We can just say hundreds. It went extremely well, it went very smoothly, everyone was very polite. There were no children fighting, even the older age groups went very well.”
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