A new ‘egg-cellent’ tradition
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
EAST PUTNAM — Ordinarily the fastest land animal is the cheetah — unless there are Easter eggs to be scooped up.
The East Putnam Fire Department hosted its first Easter Egg Hunt March 22 and more than 150 kids cleared the department’s lawn of 2,000 eggs in about three minutes.
Never mind it was a raw day threatening rain; kids and adults of all ages came complete with winter coats, patent leather shoes and bunny ears.
And if they didn’t have a basket, they brought store bags and even Halloween buckets.
Assistant Fire Chief Kyle Preston said one of the firefighters came to him and Chief Abe Walker about three weeks ago with the idea to have an Easter Egg Hunt, along with a Touch-a-Truck event.
The pair agreed and the firefighter, Ashley Jordan, was off and running. East Putnam resident Sandy Mayo donated some of the plastic eggs. And junior firefighter Evan Murphy loaded the eggs with candy.
Murphy said he took him a couple hours to fill the eggs.
Jordan works as the teen librarian at the Putnam Public Library. She comes up with the Teen Programs. She said she thought to herself it’d be nice to do something more for kids. She came up with the Easter Egg Hunt/Touch-a-Truck idea. She said kids and adults would be able to see the East Putnam Fire Department station plus the department’s trucks.
So the little kids wouldn’t get run over by the bigger kids, about 700 of the 2,000 eggs were put out first and the little kids lined up around the lawn. Whoosh! All the eggs were in the kids’ baskets.
A few minutes later, the rest of the eggs were put on the lawn and the bigger kids swooped through and the eggs were gone.
Kids of all ages also got a look at the fire trucks.
The firefighters know they have a new tradition and Jordan is already planning for next year. Possibly an Easter Bunny. Maybe she can find a bounce house.
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caption, page 1:
East Putnam Fire Department's first Easter Egg Hunt. More photos on page 5. Expanded photo array on Wed. night on our FB page. Linda Lemmon photo.
captions, page 5:
Top: Evan Murphy and Ashley Jordan. Above: Checking out the truck. Right: Xena Plante, 2. More photos Wed. night on our FB page.
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