For the second year in a row, Venue Church in Airdrie has had to cancel its popular community Easter egg hunt to comply with government regulations regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Church Pastor Corey Kope said that although cancelling the event for a second time was a difficult decision to make, it was necessary given the current climate of the pandemic.
“We would love to [host the Easter egg hunt], but with the restrictions the way that they are, we can’t have 5,000 people in a field right now,” Kope said.
“There’s no way that we could revamp [the egg hunt] in any way that would be anything like our vision for it.”
In 2019, the inaugural Easter egg hunt was hosted at Ed Eggerer Athletic Park and included a traditional chocolate egg hunt, a petting zoo, bouncy castle, and food trucks. The hunt saw more than 80,000 chocolate eggs distributed throughout the park for eager kids to find.
Last year, the event was cancelled shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta, when government regulations banned gatherings of more than 15 people and encouraged staying at home and strict social distancing.
Kope said having to cancel the Easter egg hunt again is “hugely disappointing,” but that with any luck, they hope to continue the new tradition in 2022.
“I can’t imagine this madness going on any longer, but who knows,” Kope said. “Our plan right now [is to] tentatively host the Easter egg hunt, but plans change in a year or two.”
“We would [host the event] this year, if there was really any way that we could, but it’s just impossible in this current climate to do it, even if we could do it in a way that would make sense.”
According to Kope, it has been tricky trying to host events when government regulations are constantly changing. He added that even “just pastoring people has been pretty interesting in this climate.”
“Even just doing church in this climate has been interesting, but absolutely beneficial, of course,” he said.
