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Lions Club holds its annual egg hunt

PARKERSBURG — A number of area children got to use other senses, other than their sight, to participate in a special Easter Egg hunt at Parkersburg City Park.

Around a six children attended the Parkersburg Lions Club’s annual Easter Egg Hunt for Visually Impaired Children on Sunday afternoon.

For over six years, the Lions Club has been holding the annual Easter Egg Hunt near the Veterans Memorial Plaza at City Park.

“(The Lions Club) works with people with sight impairments and we provide glasses and eye exams for a lot of people,” said Kevin Clem, event organizer. “A number of years ago we thought that a lot of kids do Easter Egg Hunts.

“If a child has a visual impairment, they probably never had the opportunity to do an Easter Egg Hunt.”

In order to help the children with sight issues with the egg hunt, Lions members stood in a large circle and set up stations. Each station had two or more people, one with candy-filled eggs and the other held a beeping “egg.” Children with sight who participated in the hunt were blindfolded to put them on an equal footing with anyone without sight.

“It helped to level the playing field,” Clem said. “Here participants find the eggs by hearing.

“It is auditory. We are giving kids an opportunity to have an Easter Egg Hunt and those kids with sight, it gives them a little look into what their peers have to deal with.”

Many of the children had a partner to help direct them as they followed the sound of the beeps and when they reached the origin, were handed the candy eggs.

The local club learned about how to do the special hunt from the Bridgeport Lions Club in Bridgeport, W.Va., which has been offering such a program for a number of years, said Larry Johnson, Parkersburg Lions Club Treasurer.

The baskets, the plastic eggs and the candy put in them were all donated by the Parkersburg Lions Club.

“It was a project that we put together to give kids an opportunity to do an Easter Egg Hunt who might not have had to opportunity to do one,” Clem said. “Equally important to us was for these families to get out together and have a nice day together.”

The Lions Club sought out participants at Wood County Schools.

It was important for organizers to give sighted children the chance to see what some of their peers with visual impairments face on a daily basis, Clem said.

Many of the children who participated in Sunday’s egg hunt were sighted.

Andrew Snider, 10, of Parkersburg was one of the participants who was blindfolded and led around. He marveled at all of the eggs he ended up getting at the end of the hunt.

He was brought by his uncle, Bill Morrison.

“We brought him out so he could have some fun,” Morrison said.

He was impressed with how it was conducted and what the event was striving to accomplish.

“The blindfolds gave everyone a fair advantage,” Morrison said.

In addition to being a fun event, it also had a purpose, said Parkersburg Lions Club President Rachel Johnson.

It shows people the challenges blind people face every day and it teaches people something about relying on their other senses.

“It give people the chance to see what blind people are able to do,” Rachel Johnson said. “Children need to appreciate what they have and realize they can help people in little ways.

“We have a good time with this and they have a ball.”

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