Community Easter egg hunt this Sunday at Simkins

What was once an intimate family gathering has now evolved into a community-wide event to observe Easter Sunday.

Local resident Cassandra Selbach and her family want to share the holiday with other local families.

Selbach is organizing a “Family Easter” service at Simkins Park beginning at 10 a.m. on Sunday.

The event will include food, prizes and live music.

Selbach said she and her family simply wanted to open up their annual Easter to other local families.

“We did an egg hunt at Simkins Park for about six years. It actually started in our backyard and has since grown and grown. We will have between 6,000 and 7,000 eggs. There will be games, prizes and all kinds of things leading up to the big Easter egg hunt,” she said.

Additionally, Selbach said the event will include an actual Easter Sunday church service at the park.

“Last year was the first year we also brought in a service in the park. Families can come out with their lawn chairs to enjoy the day. After the Easter service, the games will start. People can do the traditional Easter service and also have fun with family activities we’ll be providing,” she said.

The free event will also provide food for all who stop by.

“We will also have a barbeque and we’ve had the snow cone people come out every year since we started so we’ll have snow cones, hot dogs too,” she said.

Good food aside, Selbach said the egg hunt will be an organized affair for kids of all ages with regular eggs as well as what she calls the “golden eggs.”

“The idea is that it’s a family event so we want both adults and kids excited about it. The golden eggs contain money, so the older kids really enjoy that part of it. We’ll have adults and kids trying to hunt down the golden eggs,” she said.

To keep the egg hunt fair, Selbach said there will be individual start times for different age groups.

“We literally take the entire park and the desert adjacent to the park, all the way down to the middle school and we divide the kids up. We really don’t have all the pushing and shoving problems that many parents have seen at other egg hunts,” she said.

Selbach also warned that looking for and actually finding the “golden eggs” will not be a simple “walk in the park.”

Last year, she found a money egg from the prior year, cash still inside.

“When it’s the older kids’ turn, they are out there on the hunt because some of these golden eggs with the money inside are hidden really well. We start the little kids off by ages so there’s some good separation there,” she said.

Growing up in Amargosa Valley, Selbach said the memory of her late father Daniel Mills played a role in spurring her to invite other families.

“He would do it because it was a nice family activity. He would invite the whole neighborhood out and it was a big cool thing to do and everyone had such a wonderful time. It got the community together doing something positive. It’s all about people helping people and I want to help continue that,” she said.

Additionally this weekend, an Easter egg hunt sponsored by the Pahrump Disability Outreach Program will take place at Ian Deutch Memorial Park on Saturday April 19, along with local Earth Day celebrations.

Activities for the egg hunt will begin at 10 a.m. sharp and prizes will be awarded.