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 For almost 30 years, children have been gathering in Royersford’s Victory Park early on a Saturday morning for a rite of spring – the annual Easter egg hunt.
Pat Weikel, who has been on the borough’s Parks and Recreation Committee, which sponsors the hunt, since around 1984 or 1985, said about 350 to 400 children turn out for the event every year.
The eight members of the committee, plus some members of Borough Council, arrive at the park at 8:30 a.m. to hide the 300 dozen eggs around the wooded facility. Of course, the eggs for the youngest children are simply spread across the ground, but the hiders can be more creative for the older kids, placing eggs around trees, on stumps, even in the empty trash receptacles which are waiting for warmer weather.
The Royersford event is one of the few area hunts which still uses real eggs. The committee cooks and dyes the eggs in advance of the hunt. The eggs are steamed in large quantities (experts say that steaming is actually better than boiling, since it reduces the likelihood of overcooking the eggs), then dumped immediately into large pots of dye. The whole process goes very quickly, Weikel said, and all 3600 eggs are cooked and colored within a couple hours.
The activity does require quite a bit of effort on the part of a small group of people, but Weikel’s husband, Borough Councilman Tom Weikel, who helps every year, quickly chimed in, “But this is fun.”
By 10 a.m., hundreds of children and their parents and grandparents are scattered throughout the park, waiting for the signal to designate the beginning of the hunt. At the sound of the horn – or the command to “go” – the children dash about the grounds, gathering the brightly colored treasures.
After the eggs are gathered, the children eagerly check their bags and baskets for marked eggs, hoping for one of the candy or stuffed animal prizes. In addition, every child attending the hunt receives a coupon for a free ice cream cone from Dairy Queen.
With Easter coming very early this year, Weikel confessed she was “very concerned about the little white stuff on the ground,” but the weather cooperated with a bright and sunny – but chilly – morning for the festivities.
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