First ever Bread of Life Easter Egg Hunt a success

By Kelly Terpstra, @charlescitypress.com

Central Park was full of Easter eggs on Saturday morning in Charles City.

That also meant plenty of kids who couldn’t wait to go find them.

And that meant Shelly Tilton had to call an audible, moving up the Easter egg hunt part of the event to the beginning.

Tilton is the owner of  the Bread of Life Market, an outlet grocery store in Charles City that sponsored the event this year for the first time.

“Because we had so many kids, we did kind of go out of order, which was not our intention,” Tilton said. “We ended up doing the egg hunt first just because there were so many kids that were ready to go. They were young enough that they weren’t going to wait 45 minutes.”

Tilton said the number of families and children who showed to take part in the craft booths, games and raffle prizes was a bit overwhelming.

“It was way above our expectations. I bet we had 400 kids,” said Tilton.

Kids and adults could play games – an Easter egg race was a popular choice for many. There were booths where kids could play with bubbles and get temporary tattoos from a large selection of stickers.

“We had tons of prizes,” said Tilton.

Darrel Anderson, from Waverly, configured balloons into all shapes and sizes for the children. He said he has been making balloon animals and other various fun and exciting configurations for 13 years. He said the key is to not let the balloons deflate.

“Making sure you get the knot tied so the air doesn’t come out, that’s the biggest skill,” said Anderson. “My goal is to make as many balloons for as many kids as possible.”