Spring tradition: Two Easter Bunnies, 3,500 candy-filled eggs, scores of kids

Apr 6

April 6, 2026  |  By Lisa Scagliotti and Gordon Miller

*Bunny ears and colorful baskets, buckets and bags were plentiful at Saturday’s Easter Parade and Egg Hunt sponsored by Waterbury Rotary. Photo by Gordon Miller*

For several hundred local families, Saturday morning in Waterbury was a time to pause their weekend routine to take part in an annual springtime tradition.

Waterbury Rotary Club members were up early, scattering little plastic eggs they filled last week with candy around the grassy field at Pilgrim Park ahead of the Easter Parade and Egg Hunt.

On cue, families with many young children gathered at Brookside Primary School for the short, informal parade along the sidewalks down Stowe Street and Main Street to Park Row.

True to form, two costumed Easter Bunnies were in attendance – one on either end of the parade.

Kids walking and riding bikes were prepared wearing mud boots, which turned out not to be critical as the weather was sunny and crisp and the field mostly dry.

*Until next year. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti*

Rotarian organizers cordoned off areas for children to spread out in various age groups from toddlers to 10-year-olds. The egg hunters carried an assortment of baskets, bags and buckets – even a few jack-o-lantern designed bobbed along in the crowd – to collect their treasures.

Once the signal was announced, the youngsters took barely five minutes to clear the field of the colorful plastic eggs that Rotarians took hours to fill and set out. A handful of the colorful eggs contained notes directing their lucky hunter to visit the prize table where special toy prizes including kites awaited.

According to organizers, the event involved approximately 3,500 eggs.

Parents snapped photos, some asking an Easter Bunny to get in the shot, while kids emptied their candy into their buckets, bags and baskets. Judging from the chocolate-stained chins and cheeks, they did some sampling, too.

Before heading off to the rest of their Saturday, families stopped to turn in their empty plastic eggs to be reused next year.

The Easter parade and egg hunt is the quickest of Waterbury Rotary Club’s many community events each year. Next up: Not Quite Independence Day on June 27.