UPDATE: Lion's Easter Egg Hunt in new venue!!!!

The Orange Lions Club is sponsoring its on Saturday, April 16, at the in Orange, “rain or shine”  Saturday, April 23, with activities beginning at noon.

There will be face painting for the children and hot coffee for the adults. The Easter Bunny will arrive at 12:30 p.m. in a police cruiser.

This year's hunt was canceled last week due to extremely high winds that were blowing all of the prizes and cups around. The Lions know that the hunt is important to many children and don't want to disappoint anyone. The hunt will take place INSIDE THE GYM of the High Plains Community Center instead of on the grass at the fairgrounds — a little different, a little easier, but it will take place.

The Easter Egg Hunt is divided into four age groups. This allows each child to have an equal opportunity to collect the thousands of chocolate eggs that will be hidden. The age groups are: (1) Pre School through Kindergarten; (2) First Grade and Second Grade; (3) Third Grade and Fourth Grade; (4) Fifth Grade and Sixth Grade. More than 10,000 chocolate eggs will be distributed during the hunt. Prizes will be awarded to children in all age categories for finding specially marked eggs. 

An adult should accompany all participating children. Each child should have a bag or basket to collect their eggs. Parents may wish to bring a camera for a picture of their child with the Easter Bunny. Please note that parking for this event should be on paved parking areas only.

Lion Nick Bencivengo is the Chairman of this year’s event. Anyone who wishes to make a donation is asked to contact Nick at 203-901-9062. All donors will be acknowledged for their generosity at the Easter Egg Hunt.

The annual Easter Egg Hunt is but one of many community events and activities sponsored by the Orange Lions Club each year. Among the other annual events are: the Community Thanksgiving Dinner, the Senior’s pizza party, a wine tasting fund raiser in January and also “A Taste of Amity." 

In addition, the Orange Lions make contributions to many community organizations, such as sponsoring a Little League team. For many years, the Lions have funded a Community Grants Program for local groups who are seeking funds for a special reason. In particular, the Orange Lions Club has made many gifts to the over the years for the purchase of large print books, audio tapes and the like for the sight impaired and the general public. The Orange Lions also fund two $1,000 scholarships each year for students graduating from . 

The Orange Lions Club co-sponsors (with the Milford Lions Club) the Leo Club (Lions youth group) for special needs youths, the only club of its kind in North America. 

The Lions provide needed funds each year to support eye research, training of Fidelco guide dogs for the blind, to Lions low vision centers which provide vision aids to the sight impaired, to the Connecticut Radio Information System, and to Camp Hemlocks for blind and sight-impaired children. 

The club also collects used eyeglasses for refurbishing and recycling to Third World countries, helping to restore the gift of sight to thousands of people all over the world.