Chestermere kicked off its eighth year for its annual Easter egg hunt fundraiser on Saturday, March 31.
The event faced a change of venue this year from their usual location at the Lakeside Golf Club to Chestermere City hall.
“We had to make a last-minute venue change this year just because the weather didn’t cooperate with us.
“Originally, we were supposed to be with the lakeside golf club and then with the forecast, we decided to move it over to City Hall so that folks could have a little bit of warm time inside this year,” said event organizer Marla Polachek.
She said it was a chaotic change along the way but they have kids out hunting so they’re happy for that.
Other changes include the addition of five hunt times for kids to find eggs and eggs-change them for treats and snacks.
The United Way Chestermere partnership holds the Easter egg hunt every year with support from No Frills, Lakeside Golf Course, and Tim Hortons.
“This year we have six vendor tables that are providing items to go into the kid’s baskets and then we have agencies or other organizations that have donated cash to the event in order to offset some of the cost that we experience to help us raise more money,” said Polachek.
According to her, every year the event gets larger than the year before and they are grateful for the turnout despite the bad weather.
“We’re growing every year as we go and even with the bad weather we still managed to have almost 400 kids sign up for the event so we’re happy to have that,” said Polachek.
She said that they could not put on this event without the help of their sponsors and volunteers they have.
“We have a lot of great sponsors here helping fill the baskets and helping out and volunteers that we could not do this event without volunteers so we’re thankful to have the support we have in this community,” said Polachek.
She said the support the community shows towards the event shows just how important the event is to the community and that they’re happy to be able to continue it again this year.
All funds raised from the hunt will be staying in Chestermere and then redistributed back into the community through their human services advisory board.
Tickets this year cost seven dollars per child to take part.
“It’s our duty to host events and help assist raising funds in the community,” said Polachek.
This year United Way Chestermere partnership is funding six different organizations within the community.
“We have one agency that’s running a be safe program, which is geared towards young children, we have Camp Chestermere who is running a program that we’re providing funding for, the Red Cross, the Canadian national institute for the blind, we have a healthy families program that we’ve invested in for a number of years,” said Polachek.
Charities and other organizations can apply for funding for programs and different activities they want to run in the community and if they meet the qualifications they will allocate funding back to them.
