Rain could not stop the Easter Bunny

Macy and Manny Chesterman of Langton wait for the draw prizes to be announced Friday at the Langton Easter Egg Hunt.

Brenda Moser

Advocate Correspondent

The Waterford Heritage & Agricultural Museum held its annual Easter Egg Hunt on April 19. In spite of the damp, rainy weather at the Waterford baseball diamonds, the turnout was amazing.

According to WHAM Curator James Christison there were 463 people through the Easter Eggstravaganza gate and 240 of those were kids of all ages. 

To minimize congestion and to give the younger egg hunters a chance to gather eggs safely and fairly, the main ball diamond was theirs for the hunting and gathering. The older children were spread out in the large field outside of Diamond 1. As the time for the hunt grew closer you could see the anticipation on all the kids faces and you could almost see the wheels turning in their heads planning out their strategy.

When given the signal ‘the hunt was on,’ it was a mad dash to the goodies! All participants seemed to fare well, gathering their share of more than 9,150 chocolate eggs scattered throughout. There were also a limited number of coloured, plastic eggs that held a ticket for entry into 12 prize draws and those were scooped up quickly. To help WHAM cover the cost of those prizes, the Waterford Chamber of Commerce made a much-appreciated generous donation.

This was the 10th year for the WHAM Easter Egg Hunt. It first started on the grounds of the museum on Nichol St., but it outgrew that outdoor space. Christison stated, “COVID put a damper on things back then but we got through it. There has only ever been one wash out so we’ve been lucky.”

If necessary Christison was prepared to move a scaled down version of the hunt into the museum but their luck held out.

The Easter Egg Hunt is just one of many events and activities organized by the Waterford Heritage Agricultural Museum and we have Christison and Assistant Curator Angela Ferreira to thank for that. At present they are busy working on upcoming events, exhibits and school programming for the summer. They are also asking Waterford residents to go red-and-white when planting their summer garden beds to show our support of Canada! The museum will be supporting Waterford Chamber’s red-and-white theme with a very special exhibition of historic red-and-white quilts in its upcoming Textiles of Tenacity exhibition.

You are welcome to visit the museum at 159 Nichol Street, Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There are so many great exhibits to enjoy and the staff are happy to answer all of your questions. Admission is by donation and all donations are greatly appreciated.