College Park Kids celebrate Easter early with egg hunt

By JALEN WADE

More than 100 families from around the DMV came to Calvert Park on April 5 to take photos with the Easter Bunny and hunt for eggs during College Park’s annual Egg Hunt Egg-stravaganza.

The Saturday morning event, which the city took over three years ago, also featured games and crafts for children. 

“This looks like lots of entertainment, lots of different games to play, it looks really well organized and I just think the [children] will have a lot of fun and also get to see their relatives,” said Hyattsville resident Aaron Steers-Smith, who brought his two kids to the event.

The festivities included two egg hunts, a ring toss for children to toss rings onto an inflatable  rabbit’s ears, and cookies and hot chocolate with the Easter Bunny.

“I think a lot of it is to get together with your family and friends, you know, to build community together to have fun in a fun and safe and family-oriented atmosphere here in College Park,” Ryna Quinones, College Park’s communications and events manager, said.

 Melissa Sites, executive director of the College Park Arts Exchange, said she started hosting a booth at the event 20 years ago, even before the city took over.

“It’s really fun to offer [children] some little activity that they’ll enjoy,” Sites said. “So we brought three different activities today for kids or for adults. So it’s like a multi-generational opportunity to make a quick art project.”

At her station, children could color wooden eggs and dragonflies, make beaded necklaces and bracelets, and create custom, quarter-inch buttons to pin on their shirts.

Other games at the event included an inflatable bunny hop station, where kids could bounce on decorated balls, and life-sized versions of Tetris and Connect 4 board games.

College Park Woods native Katelyn Aldenhoff brought her 2-year-old daughter, Juniper, to the event to see the Easter Bunny and make friends.

“There’s kids kind of scattered all around [College Park] but sometimes they’re not all in one place, ” Aldenhoff said. “So this gives us an opportunity to meet our neighbors and have fun.”

The Easter Bunny was not the only local celebrity at the event. Miss College Park 2025 Maddie Bronk came out in full crown and sash regalia to pose for photos and mingle with the community. 

“I feel like it’s a good thing for everybody to come together and have some fun,” Bronk said. “I know school can be stressful. I know parents are working, Kids are busy, so it’s important to set time for yourself and just have a good time, especially around Easter.”

Under the park’s lunch patio, families relaxed and listened to music from visiting band L-M-N-O-People.

Ellie Taylor-Robinette, a member of the city’s new Childcare Task Force, took the opportunity to meet lots of parents in one place.

Taylor-Robinette placed sticky notes on a board that contained information about affordable child care within the city.

“Families are already so busy and do so much that meeting them where they are and allowing them to have their voice shared in low-barrier-to-entry [day care] spaces is really critical to ensure that family voice is being reflected in the decisions we’re making as a city,” Robinette said. 

The egg hunts took place in the woods at the back of the park, where searchable areas were separated by age ranges: infants to 2 years old; 3 to 4, 5 to 6 and 9 to10. Children ran around with Easter egg baskets of various colors trying to find the rainbow-colored eggs.

Volunteering at the event were members of the University of Maryland’s Gamma Phi Beta sorority. The sisters wore green vests as they helped out at stations and distributed eggs for the hunt. Sophomore electrical engineering major Kiera Miglani, who is from Massachusetts, said she is not used to big Easter celebrations.

“Though this is known as a college town, there’s so many families, and it’s important that  … there’s activities for the kids,” Miglani said. “Like, my town had stuff when I was little, but it was just a small town, it wasn’t a college town. So I really like that College Park does this and keeps an eye out for the families and makes sure the kids of this town are included.”