Hunting for decorated eggs is a common Easter tradition. But for children who can’t see…hunting those eggs becomes a challenge. However, over a dozen kids got to hunt for eggs thanks to help from the bomb squad.
Easter is a little over a week away but some children in the community were already hunting eggs this morning. However they weren’t your typical eggs filled with candy. “All year it was like when do I get to go to Easter day, when do I go? She jumps and jumps and jumps. Is it time, is it time yet and I’m like not yet Sophia, calm down,” said Beth Dill, Sophia’s mother. Dill is mom to seven-year-old Sophia. However, Sophia isn't like most kids her age, she is blind.
"What do you do for a blind kid for Easter," said Dill. A question that the Bakersfield Police Department decided to answer. This is the third year that they have put out these Easter eggs, equipped with devices allowing the children to hear them. "When we went out to the grass she heard all these beeping things and she goes mommy what is it and we go they're the eggs that the bomb squad made you. And she goes really I get to hunt eggs that make noise," said Dill.
18 children were on the hunt today. Over the last three years there have been 60 kids that have looked for the 150 special eggs. "My daughter just gets on her hands and does this so she can hear them better," said Dill.
And for the officers involved…"There's no words that can explain it, just to see the smiles on their faces and the emotions that they go through it's an emotional event for us as well, there's no words that can explain what that feeling is,” said Juan Orozco, a senior police officer. Which the parents are grateful for. "My heart's like wow they actually care about these kids, the disability kids, the blind kids all of them," said Dill.
All the kids that get to participate in today's event are picked by event organizers from three different local schools. And at the end of the event each kid gets to go home with a personalized Easter basket with books, stuffed animals, and food.
