By Ariel Thomas
Staff Writer
A plastic tub overflowing with neon-colored, plastic eggs waits to make its grand entrance.
“It’s an Easter celebration,” said Aukse Harris, the Residential Life and Housing assistant director, “when I started thinking about this program, my idea was to create a safe and stress-free environment for children, of course, and for students, faculty and staff, and our community.”
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The Residential Hall Association is preparing for its Seventh Annual “Eggstravaganza.” Free and open to the public, the event will feature a 10,000-egg hunt on the lawn, as well as crafts, games, food, an inflatable village and a visit from a certain bunny. Harris started this event in 2010.
“When I came to TJC in 2010, I noticed that we did not have big service projects, so I guess it was my way to make a difference for my staff and my department. It’s just I never expected it to be so big,” said Harris.
Her goal was to create a fun and exciting event, not only for TJC students and faculty, but for people in the community.
“It just makes common sense,” said Harris, “we have this big holiday and, come on, this is school where we pray before convocation — we pray before student senate meetings. It made just perfect sense to embrace that and to show our appreciation and involve our community. So it’s just lots of different reasons why we should do it.”
TJC’s Residence Hall Association has been preparing for this event since just after the Eggstravaganza in 2015.
“It seems like we work a whole year long,” said Harris, “after Easter is over, we run right to Hobby Lobby and clear all the shelves of all the eggs on clearance. We literally take a big van and just take everything that they have and, if we get lucky, we get a ton of eggs.”
As time is ticking down, there is still so much to do. After the first Eggstravaganza in 2010 that had about 56 participants, they are now expecting hundreds of people to come out for this annual celebration. But, without the help of volunteers, this wouldn’t be as successful as it has been.
“This will be my first year helping out with the Eggstravaganza,” said Jakeith Harris, a sophomore at TJC, “I’ve never seen so many stuffed eggs in my life. I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into.”
Aukse Harris is expecting over 500 people at this year’s Eggstravaganza. Harris also said that anyone is welcome to come and help on the day of the event. They will begin hiding the eggs early in the morning and through the day leading up to the event. They will need assistance with games, bounce houses and most importantly, the Easter egg hunt.
“They’ve stuffed over 20,000 eggs. So you could only imagine how many people will be out there grabbing all those eggs. It’s crazy; I can’t wait to see a bunch of college students fighting over Easter eggs,” said Jakeith Harris.
This year the Eggstravaganza will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 22 on Jenkins Lawn.
To volunteer, contact Assistant Director Aukse Harris at 903-510-3267 or email
ahar@tjc.edu.
