Outreach for Librarians: Easter Egg Hunt

Easter Egg Hunt

Objective:  To market the library to the student body

Supplies:  empty plastic Easter eggs, candy, slips of paper saying who was sponsoring the Easter egg hunt, prizes

How To:

This is not your traditional Easter egg hunt where you sound the horn and everyone grabs as many eggs as they can.  These eggs are “hidden” around the library and across campus, and while every egg has a piece of candy in it and a slip of paper saying that it was from the library, some of the eggs have larger prizes.

We hid eggs 3x’s a day - morning, afternoon and early evening - so that everyone had a chance to find an egg.

Alternatives: 

• Instead of hiding the eggs, you could have students come to the library where they will be given one egg.  This could also be done over a longer period of time until you run out of eggs.
• You and/or your student group could walk around handing out eggs.
• You could do this with just candy in the eggs and eliminate the larger prizes.

Things to Think About: 

• Buy good candy!  Candy companies will manufacture candy that will fit inside eggs and will contain a mixture of chocolate and non-chocolate candy.
• Don’t hide eggs too well – especially behind books, or you’ll be finding them for a long time, and prizes will go unclaimed.
• Don’t hide the eggs outside because of insects and Texas heat!
• When “hiding” the eggs, place them within arm’s reach.  Students should not have to stand on anything to reach an egg.
• Sometimes students realize what is going on and will follow the people “hiding” the eggs.  If you are having your student group “hide” the eggs, coach them how to politely ask the students to not pick up anymore eggs as they are supposed to be one egg per person.
• Make sure your custodial staff knows about the event so that they don’t pick up the eggs and throw them away.
• If you are doing this with a student group, this is a great activity for them to make decisions, figuring out the budget and prizes, as well as doing the shopping.  
• We had some problems with students taking the candy from the egg and then leaving the egg to punk the next student.
• For security, I initialed the back of each prize slip which also looked different that the slip of paper that said the egg was from the library.  (One year I had a student come in with a handwritten slip of paper saying that she had won a prize.)
• After stuffing the eggs, we packed them in bags of 50.  Randomize the eggs that contain prizes across the bags of 50 so that everyone has a chance to win swag bags and Grand Prizes.  I made sure that each bag of 50 eggs had at least one swag bag prize.  Bags were divided up between what would be “hidden” morning, afternoon, and evening.  One grand prize egg was placed in a morning, afternoon and evening bag so that everyone had a chance of winning a grand prize.
• As the faculty advisor, I placed the prize eggs in the bags after my students left.
• It takes a couple of hours to stuff the eggs, package them in bags of 50, and make the swag bags.  If your students are doing this, plan on feeding them.  They will work for pizza!

Prizes 

Some plastic eggs had a piece of paper saying that they had won a larger prize – either grand prize or swag bag

Three grand prizes (Value between $20-30)

• Drone ($50 – one year only)
• Popcorn maker
• Lawn games
• Coffee gift basket that we assembled ourselves
• Wireless speakers

~30-40 swag bags containing:

• Library promotional items
• Office supplies – small staplers, pens and pencils, white board markers, magnets, highlighters, paperclips, sticky notes and tabs
• Chocolate Easter bunnies & other seasonal candy
• PopSockets

My student group chose the prizes & did the shopping which helps guarantee that students will like the prizes.

Between candy, plastic eggs, and prizes, we kept the price of this event to $300

Paper Inserts 

Make the regular inserts and the prize inserts look different so that there’s no mistaking a prize egg.

Here are examples of what was on my labels.  All eggs except for prize eggs had an insert that had the following:

Happy Easter from The Library Connection

Please enjoy this piece of candy compliments of TLC and the Stafford Library

Prize eggs had the following insert:

Congratulations! from The Library Connection

You have won a ___________!

Please come to the Stafford Library & see Alexa Azzopardi to collect your prize.

(One prize per person – Photo ID required)

I numbered and initialed the back of each slip as a security measure as well as an aid knowing how many bags had been claimed.

When a student comes to collect a prize, collect the prize slip, check photo ID and have them sign a document saying that they collected their prizes.  If they are collecting a swag bag, have them sign in the appropriately numbered box.  Please see Swag Bag Pick-Up Form.