March 27, 2008

Almaden children on the hunt

Looking for goodies and chocolates

Venture Christian Church was out in force on Saturday, Mar. 22 hosting an Easter Egg hunt on the grounds of Jeffrey Fontana Park. There were at least 250 children searching for 3,500 eggs and other goodies that had been scattered around the park.

Almaden children swept up colorful plastic eggs filled with candy and toys at Venture Christian Church’s third Easter Egg Hunt. The children came in all sizes from under age 2 to over 8 years. Photo by Shana McLean Moore

The hunt was just one of 25 hunts in the South Bay from Campbell to Redwood City, and from Sunnyvale to a number in San Jose. Sponsored by Beautiful Day and local churches, Venture Christian offered the children 168 golden tickets for special prizes. The tickets were found inside the colorful plastic eggs that also contained candy and small toys.

The golden ticket prizes were also special, teas sets for the girls and unique cars for the boys, bubble wands and bubble swords, as well as furry balls.

“You can’t beat looking around the field and seeing every age group, all with smiles on their faces,” said Sarah Berrett, who organized the hunt along with volunteers from the church. About 50 to 75 other church members helped her by filling eggs and helping out at the hunt.

“It’s very pretty to see all the colorful eggs lying around the field," Berrett said, “and to watch the little ones. It’s obvious in most cases it’s their first hunt and often they’re not even sure what to do.”

The younger kids, those aged 2 and under, get to spend a little longer on the field than the older kids. The older ones have been likened to locusts, cleaning the field in a very short time. In fact, Berrett mentioned that one mom that showed up about 10 minutes late and the field was cleaned. “I felt terrible, but there wasn’t anything we could do,” she added.

Venture Christian has held the hunt the past three years, and Berrett has been in charge. She says she enjoys it so much, she’s prepared to do it again next year. "It keeps growing," she adds, "Every year there’s more churches involved and it’s so much fun."

Beautiful Day is a national network of churches working in collaboration with businesses, organizations, schools, media, entertainment, government and health care to unleash compassion into the local community in a creative and innovative way.

It started as an idea to answer a very specific question that is, “if our church burnt to the ground would the community care?” Convinced the answer was “no,” the group decided in 2004 to build a creative approach to reaching the community. There were a few blood drives and meals handed out to families in need, and the vision began to unfold. The group then decided to include other churches, local businesses and groups that can help in order to work together to impact a whole community.

—By Shana Moore