It’s the kind of day children dream about: out of school, 10,000 Easter eggs to hunt and more candy than you can imagine. That dream became a reality for 790 Phenix City students at Canterbury Health Facility’s 2nd annual Easter Egg Extravaganza.

Canterbury’s Activity Director Chey Higgins hatched the idea to bring students from nearby Ridgecrest Elementary School to the facility. From 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m., each grade level, kindergarten through fifth grade, took turns traveling to the facility to hunt Easter eggs, meet the Easter Bunny and be entertained by a DJ.

“When I do things, I don’t think small, I think big,” Higgins said with her trademark a sunny side up smile.

While it is BIG, the event isn’t a one woman show. Dozens of people scramble to complete the lengthy to do list: collect donations of candy and plastic eggs, stuff candy in the eggs, hide eggs during the breaks before the next group of students arrives and many more tasks must be completed. Canterbury’s employees and volunteers, soldiers for nearby Ft. Benning, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity hopped into action whenever they were called upon throughout the day. In the week leading up to the event, nursing home residents stuffed thousands of eggs with candy. Their collective effort is worth it for many reasons.

“It sends a positive message to the community that a nursing home hosts an event of this size and invests in the lives of local children,” Higgins explained. “The children certainly enjoy themselves. It makes Canterbury’s residents happy and uplifts their spirits. It also shows that Canterbury has relationships in the community with other organizations.”

Canterbury has come out of its shell by building relationships with the community. That’s what Higgins set out to do when she joined the staff two years ago. Ridgecrest Elementary School is located one mile from the facility. Higgins connected with the school’s speech therapist, Arshernita Johnson-Copes. They work to bring students to the facility for intergenerational activities with the nursing home residents. School clubs visit the facility and teachers have “adopted” the residents who are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia. Special events coincide with National Skilled Nursing Care Week, Halloween and other significant times of year. It’s just for fun. The activities support the school’s character education program.

“It teaches them citizenship, being active in your community, giving to others, respecting others,” Johnson-Copes said. “It teaches them all of those character education words that we work on throughout the school year. It let’s them know they can make a difference and can help someone.”