Despite Weather, McCloud Easter Egg Hunt Goes On

The weather was a factor in this year’s McCloud Annual Easter Egg Hunt which had a lower turnout.

The Hunt traditionally is the week prior to the Easter holiday and this year it landed on
April Fool’s Day.

With feet of snow still on the ground and wet conditions, the event was held indoors at the Scout Hall which is at Hoo Hoo Park in McCloud

Even though families from Dunsmuir, Mount Shasta, and further around Siskiyou County attended, the turnout was probably around 50 children and lasted about an hour.

Most years, children fill the park looking for colorful plastic eggs. Different areas of the park are designated for different age groups. This year, children were greeted at the door of the hall and handed as many candy-filled eggs as they wanted. Some of the eggs contained winning prize announcements instead of candy.

Each year, the MCRC purchases bikes, toys, candy, and eggs, and makes the baskets for the event. Because of the low turnout, it seemed like every child walked away with big winnings of bikes, baseball bats, kites, or baskets of toys and candy along with the goodies they found in each of their eggs. McCloud Community Recreation Counsel President, Patty Ballard-Faulkner, tells of the history of the McCloud Annual Easter Egg Hunt, “The beginning of the McCloud’s Annual Easter Egg Hunts was sponsored by the Preceptor Kappa Pho, the local chapter of Beta Sigma Phi Sorority which was Jean Morzenti’s (our very own Sheri Burris’s mom) sorority which was way before our time. Since then, the egg hunt has always been a Morzenti / Burris family tradition. In fact, Sheri and Stephanie Burris have been helping the Easter Bunny with all the details for this year. MCRC has been the sponsor of the Egg Hunt since the late 80’s early 90s.

“The McCloud Community Recreation Council’s main fundraiser each year is the Lumberjack Fiesta festival which is always held at the end of July. This is why we are able to keep the egg hunt tradition happening. It is so rewarding to watch the kids’ faces. We try to make sure every child does not leave without a little bit of something. I want to thank everyone who helped to make this such a fun and popular event,”
Added Ballard-Faulkner.

Sheri Burris has been volunteering for this event for generations. This year, for over a week, Burris spent her evenings preparing 3 thousand plastic eggs by stuffing them with candy for this event. Forty-four baskets filled with chocolate, bubbles, coloring books, crayons, toys, and play-doh were also assembled. There were two bikes for each age category to be won as well. Also in helping prep for this event were her daughter-in-law Stephanie and her daughters, Kayla and Kayrisa who helped the Easter bunny.

The unused candy leftover will be donated to the schools and the
plastic eggs will be recycled for next year.