Second Baptist Church in Jacksonville has never hosted an egg hunt prior to this year.
“During one of our staff meetings, we got to talking about how other churches are doing something like this, so we thought it was a great idea,” Pastor David O’Dell said. “We thought it was a great idea to engage parents and families and allow them to get out of their houses.
“We want to be able to connect with people in our community. It is just something new with the desire to provide an opportunity for people to experience Easter and a time of encouragement.”
Second Baptist Church in Jacksonville, at 1117 N. James St., will host a drive-thru Easter-egg hunt on Saturday, beginning at 10 a.m. in the parking lot.
“There will be colored eggs scattered in our parking lot for children to point and look at them from their cars,” O’Dell said. “We’ve never done anything like this before, so we are figuring this out as we go.
“Then, as they come through, we will hand them a bag.”
O’Dell said the church purchased prepackaged plastic eggs with candy inside to both make it easier on his staff and to make the take-home packages as safe as possible.
On Easter Sunday, the following day, the church will host a drive-in Easter service at 10:45 a.m. in its parking lot. Guests can listen to the service on their car radios.
“Obviously, never having done anything like this before, we are mostly relying on word of mouth,” O’Dell said. “It is hard to know how many people will show, but we will be prepared for whoever attends.”
For more information on the church’s events, call (501) 985-2502.
On Friday, the Jacksonville Parks and Recreation Department will host a drive-thru Easter egg hunt, beginning at 11 a.m. at the Martin Street Youth Center, 201 W. Martin St.
“Obviously in this situation, we tweaked our Easter event to make it more relatable,” said Marlo Jackson, assistant director for the parks department. “Since restaurants and what not are doing drive-thru for their services, we wanted to put the same twist on our Easter-egg hunt.”
Jackson said organizers chose the Martin Street Youth Center because they use it to hand out lunches at noon to students in the city.
“We thought it was the best way to attract people to the same location that we already have for our grab-and-go lunch,” Jackson said.
“We hope this will work for those who are looking for something to lift their spirits a little bit and offer something for the kids to take back home and have their own Easter eggs while they are socially distancing,” she said.
Jackson said she and her staff took safety measures when packaging the take-home eggs.
“We formed an assembly line, and we were 6 feet apart,” Jackson said. “We handled them with gloves on because we didn’t want to contaminate or do anything to the eggs.”
She emphasized that the event is drive-thru and participants should stay in their cars, she doesn’t want people to congregate.
“We are going to have barricades for the drive because we don’t want a bunch of people congregated at the youth center — it is pretty much take [the eggs] and go,” Jackson said.
She said the National Parks Conservation Association held a discussion on the best way to tweak an Easter-egg hunt, whether to cancel it or do something else.
“We just put it on Facebook, but I feel like people are probably excited for the idea,” Jackson said. “I know some people are still a little iffy on getting out, and that’s their choice.”
She said that under normal situations, the hunt would be held at the park with a field of hidden eggs, along with prizes and toys for the kids. She said there is usually an underwater Easter-egg hunt, but that has been canceled.
“We are a business built on people, and everything we do is a service,” Jackson said. “So this virus is definitely hurting us, but we have done everything we can.
“It is kind of in line with what the schools are doing and whatever the governor says. We have been slowly shutting down parts of our parks, so it has definitely taken a toll on our department.”
For more information on the Parks and Recreation Department egg hunt, call (501) 982-4171.
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.