Washington egg hunt takes to the skies this weekend
Published 12:30 am Thursday, April 11, 2019
Add this one to the list of things you don’t see every day. This Saturday, thousands of brightly colored Easter eggs will rain from the sky at Washington-Warren Airport. It’s a new twist on a familiar formula of the classic Easter egg hunt, brought to Washington through cooperation between the city’s Tourism Development Authority and Washington-Warren Field.
“This is an event we did in Georgetown, Texas, when I was in charge of putting on events for the parks and recreation department,” explained WTDA Director Erin Ruyle. “Every town has multiple Easter egg hunts, and they’re all the same, so we really wanted to give the Easter egg hunt a unique twist.”
As a result of that uniqueness, Ruyle says Georgetown saw a spike in traffic coming in from 2-3 hours out of town during the event, in addition to local kids and their families attending. With the big egg drop this weekend, she hopes to replicate the same success here in Washington.
While tourism could potentially see a boost from the egg drop, so too could the airport. Bringing children and their families to the facility goes hand-in-hand with the airport’s mission of promoting aviation to the public.
“It’s not just exposure for the airport, but aviation in general,” said airport operations technician Josh Waters. “We want them to know that the airport is trying to be a positive thing for the City of Washington, for the community and the surrounding area.”
Registration for the egg drop starts at noon Saturday, with lineup for the drop beginning at 1:30 p.m. and the drop itself occurring at 2 p.m. Children will be divided based on age group to ensure that everyone gets a fair shot.
“The helicopter will release over 8,000 candy-filled eggs from the sky,” Ruyle said. “They’ll watch the eggs drop from the helicopter, and then we’ll release them to go hunt.”
On each of the four age-divided fields, a prize egg will leave one lucky kid with a large Easter basket courtesy of the city. In addition to the main event, there will also be inflatables, face painting, food trucks and photos with the Easter Bunny.
Should the weather not cooperate on Saturday, the egg drop will be postponed until April 20. Any change will be announced on the city’s social media pages on Friday.