Funny how over the years in the Jaycees the projects I
sometimes never thought would fly actually ending up soaring to the outer
reaches of Pluto. Such was the case of
the Laramie Jaycees 1991 Easter Egg Hunt.
First I will have to give some background on what happened
before this project took place. I moved to Laramie, WY from Cheyenne, WY in
fall of 1990. The chapter in Laramie was
struggling, needed new leadership, members and was in danger of losing their
charter. I was suffering from burnout
when I first moved there because I'd just come off a very busy year in Cheyenne
as Local President and a painful divorce.
In 1990 when I moved to Laramie the chapter was down to 14 members, they
were on probation and only had one more month before the State would pull their
charter. Once the charter is pulled the chapter has to dissolve.
I had a good friend named Harold Babbitt who was a Laramie
Jaycee at that time. He asked me or should I say begged me, to help the chapter
get back on its feet again. When he and
I first talked about it I was just not ready to dive into another big challenge
in the Jaycees. I just spent the
previous 5 years doing Jaycees day and night to the point of madness really.
Harold just kept working on me until I decide to give in and
help out. My love and devotion to the
Jaycees was to strong at that time to see the chapter not die so I took over as
Local President for what remained of that Jaycee year. Then in earnest the task
of trying to take the remaining members and seeing what we could do to rebuild
the chapter began. The first order of
business of course was to sign up 6 new members so we could retain our charter. In a month with the help of some of the
remaining diehards in the chapter we signed up 6 new members to retain the
charter.
We started doing some small fun projects that went well but
needed to come up with a project to make a big slash so it could help build the
organization. One member named Janet
suggested that we host an Easter Egg Hunt.
She said that no one in Laramie was hosting one and that if might be a
way to get our name out in the community.
I freely admit that I was very skeptical that such a project
would work in Laramie for several reasons.
One was that the winters in Wyoming especially Laramie was notoriously
long and two the chapter was flat broke and didn't have a relationship with
many local businesses to get the needed donations that were required to make it
happen. We certainly didn't have enough of our own operating capitol to
purchase the needed items for it.
Hosting an Easter Egg Hunt in Laramie in March or April was
akin to hosting an Ice Sculpting Contest in the Mojave Desert in July. The chance of bad weather dropping the
turnout to a hand full of kids in Eskimo suits was a real possibility. In all the years I lived in Wyoming in
several different cities the worst winters by far were spent in Laramie. So while I was encouraged by the excitement
of Janet and a few of the new members who wanted to try it I just wasn't
confident it would work.
Thankfully Janet's excitement did carry over to the non-believers
(me included) and with the help of about a dozen other Jaycees we began to get
all the donations that were needed to give it a try. A week before the Easter
Egg Hunt we got the 1,000 plastic eggs from Wal-Mart which we would use to put
the candy in. We also received a
donation on of candy from one of the local wholesale candy stores in Laramie. Other items were donated like stuffed
Easter Bunnies, gift certificates among other items. The plan was to place slips of paper in
random eggs then awarded the donations to the lucky kids who found them.
Then the next big task was stuffing all the eggs. There were about a dozen or so diehard
Jaycees that started stuffing the 1,000 eggs we hoped to have ready for the
hunt. It took as the whole week leading
up to the day of the hunt to finish that tedious task. The project was coming together nicely and
the new group of Jaycees jumped in with a team effort to get the eggs ready. We put an ad in the paper and placed one on
the local radio stations and then just hoped upon hope the weather would
cooperate.
The weather had been cold most of the week before the Hunt. The temperatures had ranged from the low 20s
to 30s for most of the week so we really feared a cold one the day we had scheduled
for the project. Since the Hunt would
start at 9 a.m. on Sunday we knew the coldest part of the day would be the
early morning hours.
The morning of the Hunt finally came and all the committee
members showed up at 7 a.m. at the local city park where the project was to be
held. When we first arrived at the park
the temperature was 34 to 35 degrees and there was a frost on the ground but no
snow. By 8:30 a.m. we had the eggs
scattered throughout the park in 3 different areas since we had 3 different age
groups for the kids.
Nervously we waited to see if anyone would show up for the 9
a.m. start time. Slowly more and more parents and kids began to show up at the park By 9 a.m. my best guess was there were 300
kids who had showed up for the Egg Hunt.
Parents and kids alike dressed in winter clothes anxiously awaited
around the sectioned off areas for the hunt to begin. I was flabbergasted; I couldn't believe the
turnout especially since it was such a cold day.
The whistle blew to officially begin the hunt and in less
than 15 minutes all the eggs had been scooped up off the ground by the excited
kids. It was amazing; we had to break up
fights among some of the kids who were scrambling to get to the eggs. Many of the smaller kids were to slow on the
take and some were lucky to even get one Egg.
It was a hilarious thing to watch as the kids run like crazed maniacs to
get to the eggs.
I really was the Doubting Thomas right up until the day we
had the hunt but it ended up being one of the most successful projects I was
ever involved with in Jaycees. The
project had a huge ripple effect on the chapter. Word got around that we really were making an
effort to conduct community based projects in Laramie. As word spread the chapter started to grow in
membership. The Easter Egg Hunt really helped to springboard the chapter. The project was such a staple for the chapter
that it ended up being an annual event and grew each year after. This project helped keep the Laramie Jaycees
active in the community for years.
I guess the moral of the story is never underestimating the
value of a good idea even with the preconceived obstacles. Even in a cold place like Wyoming there was a
huge demand for community service projects aimed at children. It just one of the many great projects I was
fortunate to be involved in during my 15 years of service in the Wyoming
Jaycees. The demand is still there so I
encourage those of you who have read this far to check into the Jaycees or any
other service group and get involved.
You'll be amazed how sacrificing
just a little of your time will do so much for someone, not to mention
what it will do for you. The gift of service is the one that keeps on giving.
To me it's the best work of life. Have a
Happy Easter.
Sincerely,
An Old Exhausted Rooster,
from the Great State of Wyoming.
