Kids waited with baskets, bags, and buckets in hand for the horn to sound on Easter Sunday morning at Juniper Park in Northeast Bend.
The Bend Elks Lodge 1371 hosted their annual community Easter Egg Hunt.
Some had a strategy.
“My entire goal was to go all the way in the back, because everyone started in the front,” said Mackenzie Deaner of Bend.
Others needed encouragement from parents and grandparents to pick up the colorful plastic eggs scattered around the park.
No matter the method the hunt went quick.
“Four thousand eggs in eight minutes,” said Bradley Thomas a member of the Bend Elks Lodge 1371.
The event is a tradition the lodge has been a part of for decades.
“Some of the members that have come here to hide the eggs this morning, jeepers, 45 years ago they were the little kids running through the park,” said Bradley.
This year the Easter Bunny had some helpers, players from the Bend High Softball Team started hiding eggs around 6 a.m.
After the all the eggs were found, there were signs of sharing the collected bounty with siblings.
“I’m giving them five each,” said Deaner as she gestured to her brothers with a basket full of eggs hand, “I mean I got a lot more than them.”
To cap off the event, the Easter Bunny made the rounds for a photo op.
“It makes us feel good to give back to the community each and every day. And this is just one of the ways we do it,” said Thomas.
