The 1991 Laramie Jaycees Easter Egg Hunt

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.