By Beverly Harvey

Published: March 18, 2008

Break out the baskets, bonnets — and flashlights — it’s time for the Opelika Parks and Recreation Department’s annual Easter festivities.

The Opelika Parks and Recreation Department is sponsoring two days of activities to help the community celebrate Easter.

On Thursday, the eighth annual Flashlight Egg Hunt will be held at Moore Stadium, and on Saturday, Easter on the Square will be held at the courthouse square in downtown Opelika. Both events are free and open to the public.

The nighttime egg-hunting event is open to third- through fifth-graders. “Hunters” should come prepared with flashlights and baskets to gather painted rocks to be turned in for cash prizes and plastic eggs filled with coupons for movies and restaurants.

Flashlight Egg Hunt participants will be grouped by age and lined up along the field sidelines before starting the hunt. The stadium lights will be turned off and the flashlights will be turned on as the kids search for the holiday bounty.

“They look like little ants and fireflies all over the field,” Barbara Kent, Opelika Parks and Recreation special activities coordinator, said of the flashlight-holding participants. “It doesn’t take long; it’s amazing how quickly they find everything.”

Younger children can test their egg-hunting prowess and celebrate the holiday at the Easter on the Square event, open to children in second grade or under. The event will offer free cotton candy and lemonade.

Easter on the Square will include “Egg-tivities,” quick arts-and-crafts projects for kids, who can create a pair of rabbit ears, decorate an edible treat or make “bunny food” to attract the Easter Bunny, among other activities.

“They all go home with things other than candy,” Kent said.

Afterward, children and their parents can march around the courthouse square in the Ultimate Easter Parade accompanied by the Easter Bunny, an Easter Egg and an Easter Chicken.

The event will end with the Super Spectacular Egg Hunt — with more than 25,000 eggs, including prize eggs, for children to find and collect in their baskets. Egg hunters will be divided by age.