Second annual Easter Festival set for April 12

HALEYVILLE - Businesses, industries and individuals are being asked to make donations toward the City of Haleyville’s second annual Easter egg hunt and festival, which has been moved to a new location.
This year’s event will be Saturday, April 12, at 11 a.m. at the Haleyville Sports Complex, located at 3103 9th Avenue.  This year’s event will feature even more activities than last year’s inaugural festival, which was held downtown, noted organizer and Haleyville City Hall employee Katie Tidwell.
Donations from businesses, industries and individuals are currently needed, from prizes to be given away to supplies such as eggs and candy, she said.
The deadline for making donations will be this coming Monday, April 7, so organizers can have time to properly prepare for the event the following Saturday, Tidwell explained.
Those who can make donations for the festival can contact Haleyville City Hall at (205) 486-3121.
“It’s the first (festival) we have every year,” Tidwell said. “It brings all the kids out. They love hunting the eggs and prizes,and everybody just has a good time.
“We’re excited about this year and we hope to grow every year,” Tidwell added. “We hope with this extra room, that it gets bigger and better every year.”
The reason the event has been moved to the sports complex is to allow for more room and allow each of the four age divisions to be able to hunt eggs at the same time, each on a different field at the complex, Tidwell stated.
“The kids will hunt the eggs on the baseball fields,” she noted.
“We definitely needed more room than what we had downtown,” agreed Mayor Ken Sunseri. “It’s going to be a lot more convenient for people. We’ll have better parking up here. We’ll have different age groups on different fields, so it will work real well for us.
“We’re thankful for the opportunity to have an event like this so that we can bring public participation and enjoyment for our children,” Sunseri added.
Each age division will be identified by a different color:  pink for ages 0-2, green for ages 3-4, purple for ages 5-7 and blue for ages 8-12, organizers said. Children in each age category will receive a bag of that particular color, Tidwell stated.
When children are registered at the entrance to the sports complex beginning at 11 a.m., they will be assigned a color and a bag sponsored by the City of Haleyville, which they will use to place their eggs in as they gather them, organizers said.
When the specific color is called, children in that age division will report to one of the four ball fields for the hunts, all beginning at 11:30 a.m., Tidwell said.
During the event, the concession stand will be open for the purchase of snacks.  Inflatables will be on site, provided by the city. Children will also have access to the playground, organizers said.
Children can have pictures made with the Easter bunny, who will be in attendance, added Tidwell.
A deejay will be playing music through the speaker system at the sports complex, she said.
Prizes will be given out, depending on what each child finds inside his or her colorful plastic egg, organizers said.
Each of the eggs will contain candy or toys, but certain eggs will contain paper stars which will coordinate with a table of prizes, Tidwell pointed out.