ADRIAN, Mich. — Hundreds of Michiganders gathered in downtown for a very Good Friday celebration: an Easter egg hunt.
Community members and families scoured the streets for the colorful eggs and organizers and downtown businesses were thrilled with the turnout. Jay Marks, executive director of Adrian's downtown, smiled watching the successful event.
"The energy downtown is just extraordinary. To see everybody smiling, it's a great day. Weather is perfect. So, you couldn't ask for anything better," Marks said.
Marks said the First Friday events have been going on for nearly 10 years in the southeast Michigan city.
But this Good Friday turned into a bit of a Chaotic Friday, as children of all ages scampered in and around the streets for thousands of eggs hidden throughout the four blocks of downtown.
"I collected eggs real fast," Aubrey Burwell said. "I think I collected a billion."
Sydney Mohler was in the hunt for one thing and one thing only: candy. She managed a "quality over quantity" approach in the end, taking home something fellow ecstatic kid Charlie Bucket -- of Willy Wonka fame -- dreamed of.
"I won a golden ticket," Mohler said. "So the golden ticket goes to like a water park, the whole family gets in for free."
Additionally, there was an adult easter egg hunt, where 17 downtown businesses had one egg hidden in each of them. Joshua Roth, the owner of participating location Musgorve + Company, was happy to take part.
"Any time we can bring a significant amount of people downtown and try to give life to our downtown here in Adrian is really important to us," Roth said.
Musgrove + Company is actually where Margie and Bob Allen happily found their first egg and proved that fun has no age.
"Why not?" Bob Allen said.
"[If we didn't] then we would get old," Margie Allen said.
Grace Ayala, Cassisus Stark, Sampson Stark and Mark Stark were doing double egg hunt duty for the kids and the adults. They liked the kids hunt, but Cassisus felt some of the kids were too fast and rough. With one more year of wisdom under their belts, Ayala said next year will be a victory for them.
"We really try to make First Fridays a genuine community event," Michelle Dewey, Adrian's communications and marketing coordinator, said. We do a Halloween trick-or-treat event every year. We wanted to do something else. So, we decided to do an Easter egg hunt."