Egg-citing Times at Lawrence Easter Egg Hunts

“There was a great turn out this year, nice weather and no tears,” Matt Calu from the Lawrence Township Recreation Department said following the township’s annual Easter Egg hunt held on April 7. The sunshine of the day was a vast improvement over the rain that ruined the 2011 hunt.

Steve Groeger, the township’s superintendent of recreation, said “the hunt has been taking place as long as I have been here, which is 30 years. We usually have 150 to 200 kids from 2 to 12 years of age. They are separated into four groups by age in separate locations. Plastic eggs are strewn around in each of the areas.”

The eggs were prefilled by Fun Carnival with toys and stickers. At the end of the hunt, the children also received a prize. A giant chocolate Easter bunny was given to children who found golden eggs. In some cases, the bunnies were almost as large as the winners.

On Easter Sunday itself, the 84th annual Venner-Hullfish Village Egg Hunt was held.

It was 1929 when good neighbors Charles Venner and Charlie Hullfish began the hunt – using hard-boiled eggs – for the children in the neighborhood. Their homes, one on Craven Lane and the other on Titus Avenue, backed up to each other.

Gary Hullfish recalls that Venner was a World War I veteran. “He did it for the village, and that’s the tradition we are continuing,” he said.

Every aspect of the hunt is steeped in tradition – one that the families are planning to continue for at least another 16 years, and hopefully longer. According to town historian Dennis Waters, over the years the population of Lawrence Township has grown from 6,293 in 1930 to 33,472 in 2010. The Venner-Hullfish egg hunt is a local bit of Small Town Americana.