Virtual Easter Egg Hunt Gives Father McGivney Catholic High School Students Opportunity To Celebrate Easter Season

GLEN CARBON - Although its students haven't attended classes since March 17, due to all Illinois public and private schools being closed due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, the community of Father McGivney Catholic High School will still be able to celebrate Holy Week together.

A virtual Easter egg hunt that started on Palm Sunday, April 5, and will continue all week until Easter Sunday on April 12, is allowing the school's students and their families a chance to celebrate Easter together, albeit online, due to the current social distancing guidelines that are prevailing during this time.

The virtual hunt was the idea of the school's development director, Elizabeth Moody, in order to allow the students to celebrate the season together.

"Because the kids are not in school right now, and since they're unable to celebrate with friends and family, we decided to incorporate eggs to symbolize Easter," Moody said.

Another idea was to encourage students and their families to attend streaming Mass or church services, which has become common during the stay-at-home mandate from Gov. J.B. Pritzker that went into effect on March 17. As of now, the stay-at-home mandate is set to expire on April 30.

"Because we're a Catholic school, we wanted to encourage everyone to attend Mass or services during Holy Week," Moody said.

Students were encouraged to put up eggs for attending online Mass or services, have put up the eggs on the front doors and windows of their families' homes, and have shared pictures on social media accounts. There aren't any prizes being awarded; rather, it's more of a community-wide project, and younger students who aren't yet attending McGivney are also participating in the project.

"It's also a way for them to be a community," Moody said, "because cars and people pass by to see the eggs. And they've also been sharing pictures of their eggs on social media."

The results thus far have been very good, and Moody has been very happy with how the project has progressed so far. She also feels that it's a great way for the students to show how they feel as well.

"It's really been nice to see the kids getting involved, and showing their faith," Moody said.

More like this:

Related Video:

Print Version