By Dolores Sauca Lorusso

“It’s 28,000 Easter eggs and counting,” Hampton Circle’s Gisela Voss said of the communitywide egg hunt she and her husband, Dan Kernan, began 28 years ago.

Each Easter, they have hidden a thousand eggs filled with candy, as well as small surprises such as Play-Doh, bouncy balls, and ring pops, for local children to find. This year’s event takes place at 11 a.m. on Easter Sunday, April 9.

The longstanding tradition began when they moved into the Hampton Circle neighborhood and wanted to meet other parents of preschoolers; now they “can’t imagine not doing it.”

“The Easter egg hunt drew everyone together,” Kernan said. “Over the years it has gotten bigger and bigger...People have come to expect it.”

Even during the COVID19 pandemic, the Easter egg hunt pulled the neighborhood “together while apart.” In 2020 and 2021, when it was not advisable to have groups of children together, they had what they dubbed “Easter Egg Takeout” and placed goodie bags on a table in front of their house. They gave out about 50 bags each of those years. They missed the “happy kids” running through the grass searching for eggs all over their yard.

“When we moved to Hull from Brookline we didn’t know anyone…then we met our neighbors and learned the beauty of the ‘Hull family,’” said Voss, adding that she “can’t believe it has been 28 years.”

The event draws between 20 and 50 children, and they all go home with “enormous amounts of candy.”

A section is blocked off for the toddlers and the rest of the kids are lined up by size.

“We let the littlest ones go to the left and as they get bigger we usher them to the right,” said Kernan, “so there is no mowing over.”

“The mad dash is over in about 10 minutes and then come the golden eggs which are harder to find,” Voss said.

Golden eggs have been a special feature of the Easter egg hunt since it started.

“During the early years, Dan would have to spray paint the golden eggs because gold plastic ones did not exist back then,” said Voss. “The golden eggs each have a dollar in them and the winner gets a special prize like a Frisbee, or some other inexpensive toy. But to the kids, finding the golden egg is the real prize.”

Their youngest son, Rio, who is in high school, confirmed this, saying his favorite memory is “finding the golden eggs and growing up to hide them.”

As the years have passed the event has “evolved.” At first, it was held in just the Voss/Kernan yard, now it has expanded to a couple of the neighbor’s yards around them. It is a community building event where the neighbors pitch in.

“The neighborhood kids switched roles as they got older…now they’re teenagers stuffing the eggs and pondering where to hide the golden eggs on Easter morning,” Kernan said.

“The hardest hiding place we’ve had for a golden egg is when one was hoisted up the flag pole,” Voss added.

The tradition is being passed down generations; the teens and young adults want to bring joy to the younger children.

“Sometimes children will show up late and we have run out of candy,” Kernan said. “The older kids and teens open eggs and fill them with their candy.”
“A few of the original kids are old enough to come with a toddler,” said Voss.

Some eggs are not found until the fall when their hiding places are revealed.

“In the fall we find Easter eggs where no one hid them,” Kernan said, “tucked away where there was once vegetation and a squirrel had carried it off, but couldn’t figure out how to get it open.”

“Twenty-eight years and we have never been rained out,” said Voss. “It has drizzled, but we have never had to cancel the egg hunt.”

Voss and Kernan. agreed that even as empty-nesters they will continue to have the Easter egg hunt.

“As long as people are coming and neighbors with little kids move in to the neighborhood we won’t stop,” said Kernan.

The first egg hunt began with their three-year-old son, Luke, who passed away in 2012 at age 19. His parents say he will “always be a part of the Easter egg hunt tradition;” however, to honor his memory they started Luke’s Light to bring solar lights to places in the world where there is limited access to electricity, such as Ukraine, Haiti, Honduras, and Kenya.

Visit lukeslight.org to see how you can spread light in the darkness during this season of “hope, rebirth, and love.”