Fraternity, Police Officers Sponsor Carnival

San Marcos - It is 8 am as a rabbit hides goody-filled eggs while carnival games, moon jumps, and barbeque pits spring to life.

Every March, Omega Delta Phi Fraternity holds their annual Easter Egg Hunt in San Marcos the Sunday before Easter to give the children of the city a day of free fun, food and games.

The Easter Egg Hunt takes place this Sunday, March 28^th, 2010 at the San Marcos city parks, and lasts from noon until five p.m.

Salvador Mena, president of the organization said from August to March, members of Omega Delta Phi plan the event and devise ways to improve it.

“We fundraise by selling food in the quad, we go out to local businesses and request either funding or we ask that they donate items that can be used during the event,” Mena said. “We even ask other Greek organizations for help. Some give us money or they volunteer for the event.”

Community Service chair Conrad Reyes said the first Easter Egg Hunt took place in 2003 at Chapultepec Homes in San Marcos and had less than 20 volunteers and served only a small group of children. The goal was to give underprivileged children a chance to have fun free of charge. Since then it has grown to a large scale event with over 50 volunteers and hundreds of people attending.

“It’s good to see how much our event has grown,” Reyes said. “It shows how much people like our event and are willing to come out to it. Our event is so big the mayor even came one year.”

Reyes said the organization also gets help from the San Marcos Police Officers Association. The SMPOA helps Omega Delta Phi by supplying volunteers and donating resources to the event.

“They have been helping us with the Easter Egg Hunt since 2007,” Reyes said. “The work they do for us is really great. We will continue to work with them in the future.”

Albert Lopez active Omega Delta Phi member has been participating in the Easter Egg Hunt since 2006 and has seen first hand how the SMPOA has become a key factor in making this event a success.

“During one of our Easter Egg Hunts, we weren’t able to get any power for our moon jumps,” Lopez said. “That’s when the officers called up the fire department to bring us out a generator. It saved us from embarrassment.”

Vice President of the organization Lorenzo Davila has been working hand in hand with Reyes and the SMPOA to make this event as fun and entertaining for the children as possible.

“There’s going to be carnival games, moon jumps, barbeque and several East egg hunts,” Davila said. “The first egg hunt will be for one-three year-olds, the second will be for four-eight years-olds and the third hunt will be for nine-12 year-olds.”

The plastic eggs which were donated by the SMPOA will be filled with candies and toys and several of the “golden” eggs will have tickets the children can redeem for special prizes.

“We give away bicycles, Easter egg baskets, razor scooters and other toys we think the children will enjoy,” Davila said.

By five o’clock the children will have gone home, the games will be packed neatly in their containers and the food will have run out. The Easter Egg Hunt took months to plan and cost thousands of dollars, but only took hours to execute. “It gives me a good feeling inside to know that we gave these children something that they can remember,” Mena said. “It’s not everyday these children can experience something like this.”