“On your mark. Get set. Done.”
That’s how Naperville Park District Program Manager Fred Gusel describes the flashlight egg hunt during which 80 kids ages 9 to 13 storm the lower picnic grove of Knoch Knolls Park in hopes of scooping up a few of the thousands of plastic eggs hidden throughout the grounds.
“I think the best part was the stampede of people,” 10-year-old Emma Corbett said of the Thursday night event. “I like the prizes, opening (the egg) up” as she separated two halves of a plastic egg.
“Seeing what’s inside” is also the most fun for 9-year-old Adalynn Gaster, who joined her friend Sophia Romero at the annual Naperville event, a tradition for the tween crowd who has outgrown the “little kid” egg hunts.
“It’s funner. Challenginger. And more eggs,” said Zoe Atwell when asked to compare the flashlight egg hunt held after sunset to the standard Easter egg hunts in the morning or afternoon.
“It’s bigger. More kids,” her brother Landon Atwell added. “And the prizes. I got a $25 gift card to Dunkin.”
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The flashlight egg hunt featured 3,400 eggs, each of which had a small toy inside like a plastic dinosaur or spinning top. Half of them also included a coveted prize: a slip of paper for a gift card, candy bar or bigger toy to be redeemed after the hunt.
Donated gift cards ranged from a free kids meal at Texas Roadhouse or a free soft serve ice cream cone at Riverwalk Cafe to 30 minutes of free bowling at WhirleyBall or $25 of arcade play at Main Event. The candy prizes included 10 different options, like a large Kit Kat bar or Fun Dip, and the bigger toys were things like inflatable guitars and light-up yo-yos.
“Being able to hand the prizes to the kids and see how excited they are” is what convinced Neuqua Valley High School senior Alex Del Genio to volunteer at the event for a second time.
“It’s just fun,” he said. “It can get a little crazy. They unleash them all at once. They’re screaming. They’re excited when they’re getting eggs.”
Naperville Park District Program Manager Brock Atwell oversaw the distribution of prizes after the hunt, when the kids plop down on the Knoch Knolls Nature Center deck, dump the eggs out their baskets or bags, spread out their toys and slips of paper, and stand in line to claim their prizes.
“It’s fun to see the eggs disappear in 30 seconds,” Atwell said. “It’s about 15 to 30 minutes to redeem the prizes. We’ve got it down to a science.”
About 15 volunteers repeated the process for two different sessions — filling the meadow with the eggs, checking in each pre-paid participant, gathering the group in one area before releasing kids at 7:45 and 8:40 p.m. and passing out prizes.
The 80 open slots per session always fill up, and there are few no-shows, said Gusel, who has supervised the hunt for eight years. “This is one of my favorite (events) because of the smiling faces,” he said. “It’s a little different. The kids have fun grabbing eggs.”
The policy allowing each child to collect no more than 20 eggs is strictly enforced, Gusel said.
“I love it when kids know it’s the limit. They count and get to 20, and they put it back” in the field if they have more than 20 in their bag, said Ekta Luthra, mother of 12-year-old Yash. She and her friend Aarti Sharma watched their sons scramble around together.
“We’re neighbors since the boys were in kindergarten. It’s one of the last years, the last hurrah for Easter before they’re too big,” Sharma said.
She bundled up her 2-year-old twins to bring 12-year-old Arnav to the flashlight egg hunt on a chilly April night. “It’s a good thing to keep the spirit going. Tweens are hard to keep in the spirit” of the holiday.
“It’s a good community event. I wish it was warmer. I’ll take it. At least it’s not raining,” said Paul Ward, of Aurora, who brought his daughter and niece, each of whom got “the full 20? eggs they were allotted. “We didn’t have this as kids. They (parents) hid eggs, and you found about six.”
Diane Moca is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.