Over 700 attend Rotary’s 2nd annual ‘Easter Egg-stravaganza’

Over 700 children and their parents gathered at the Sugar King Park in Garapan at 9am on a cloudy and windy Saturday morning for the Saipan Rotary Club’s 2nd annual “Easter Egg-stravaganza,” which featured over 3,000 eggs scattered all over the park for the children to hunt.

This year’s event was a bigger one, with more participants, more eggs, more prizes, and more activities than what was held last year at the first Easter egg hunting event by the Rotary. 

Besides the eggs, participants were given a free decorated Easter goody bag filled with snacks and goodies, were also able to take a picture with the Rotary mascot Easter Bunny, and enjoyed the free bouncy house, slides, and face painting and body tattoos at the NMI museum grounds.

After the egg hunting event at the Sugar King Park took place, children, parents and the rest of the community were invited down to the NMI Museum grounds for the winners to collect their prizes and to enjoy the vendors and booths of small businesses that were present.

The event was divided into two segments: the Easter Egg Hunt, with participants divided into four groups (toddlers, preschool, elementary, and middle school) and the Easter Egg Decoration Contest, which had high school student participants.

“We expected more [children] this year but we didn’t expect to get this much. But now with the pandemic settling down, it was expected to get more participation and that is what we wanted. We wanted more of the community and families and kids to come out. …We wanted to give them something to enjoy,” said Joann Aquino, director of community service of the Rotary Club. “I think it’s really turned out well, and I’m so glad for the weather” as it was forecasted that bad weather was imminent over the weekend, but “we were just praying for a good day today for the children.”

Ben Babauta, owner of Tyler’s Gelatte Stone and organizer of the Small Business Sunday at the Sugar King Park, said they did their sixth Small Business Sunday on a Saturday and partnered with the Rotary Club of Saipan and the CNMI Museum to showcase 19 small businesses at the event.

Ivan Ilmov, president of the Rotary Club of Saipan, said this was their second “Easter Egg-stravaganza” and they’re planning to make it an annual event.

“Thank you so much to all participants who came today. We really want to also thank the support of the mayor, the NMI Museum for the donations to make this event successful. …We appreciate the strong support from the community,” he said.