The 2016 Easter Egg Roll Brightens The Day
By: Hope Wilkos, Writer
Photos : Monique Nolan, George Whylie
With President Obama’s presidential term winding down, the President wanted this year’s traditional Easter Egg Roll to be one for the history books. This tradition has been in existence for the past 138 years and is one of the largest public events held at the White House.
This year the event took place on Monday, March 28, 2016, on the South Lawn of the White House. Children spent much of their Easter Sunday morning searching for colored eggs left by the Easter Bunny and now they had one more opportunity to load up their baskets with even more brightly-colored eggs. Children and adults geared up for this all-day event which began at 7:30 a.m. and continued all the way through to 6:45 p.m.. At the end of the day, the count of guests participating in this Egg Roll topped 35,000, coming from all parts of the nation, chosen in a type of lottery. In 2009, the Obama Administration created an online lottery system to distribute a portion of these tickets, and for the eighth straight year, this lottery has helped open up the White House Easter Egg Roll to guests from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Besides the big Easter Egg Hunt, there was plenty of fun and frolicking with lots of storytelling, sports activities, games, food and entertainment. The theme of the day was ‘Let’s Celebrate.’
The last Easter Egg Roll of the Obama administration also included the first ever White House Fun Run. This was all a part of Mrs. Obama’s healthy initiative, ‘Let’s Move’, and the First Lady joined over 250 children on a short run in an effort to promote an active and healthy lifestyle for kids in today’s society.
Sensational Tony Award Multi-Platinum Recording Artist, Idina Menzel, was invited to sing the National Anthem, opening the exciting festivities of the day. In addition, she could be heard singing some of the guests other favorites in her amazing rendition. The Official Emcee of the 2016 White House Easter Egg Roll was Tommy McFly, captivating this younger crowd with his vivacious personality. The Easter Egg Roll certainly would not have been complete without the Sesame Street cast.
Readers on the Storytime Stage included Bear Grylls who is always ready for an adventure, the cast of Black-ish, Trinitee Stokes and the cast of Bunk’d, Genevieve Goings, La La Anthony, Robin Roberts, Sesame Street, Shaquille O’Neal, Shonda Rhimes, and Loni Love, Adrienne Bailon and Jeannie Mai from The Real.
Chefs Kwame Onwuachi, José Andrés, Roblé Ali, Spike Mendelsohn, Mikaila Ulmer, Pati Jinich, Sunny Anderson, and Ted Allen prepared healthy eating demonstrations in the Play with your Food station.
In the Eggtivity Zone, the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition as well as players and coaches from professional sports teams taught kids how to play sports and showed kids easy, fun ways to stay active and fit. There were a large number of famous ‘Hall of Fame’ athletes from across the nation helping to make this day special for all the sports enthusiasts attending the Roll.
The Hop To It Stage offered a variety of interactive dance and other physical fun dance moves including Hip Hop Public Health, Kid Tribe with Mack and Moxy, PopFitKids, Soul Cycle, The Happiness Club, Troops for Fitness.
The Ellipse had an entertainment stage where guests enjoyed musical acts and other activities from Ballet Petite presents Taptricity, Chuck Flayhart (Stilt walker), Harvard Din & Tonics, Tennis Pandas Bam and Boo and Zumba WSC.
There were almost as many costume characters parading up and down the South Lawn and taking to the entertainment stage to sing and dance as there were guests. Freddie the Frog, Smokey the Bear, SpongeBob Square Pants, The Cat In The Hat, Angry Birds, Darth Vader and The Storm Troopers were just some of the characters that stepped right out of the storybooks.
Parents looked forward to a bit of Zen time as they were invited to the Yoga Garden to enjoy a relaxing session of yoga taught by professional instructors.
The inner artist in all was unveiled as egg dying and egg decorating was a popular area for kids to congregate and be interactive. Educational sessions of the day included opportunities to learn about healthy eating and scientific experiments were conducted to answer all those ‘why’ and ‘what if’ questions.
First Lady Michelle Obama had chosen the winning artwork from this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll Design Contest. Elementary and middle school students from 19 states and two foreign countries submitted artwork related to this year’s theme, “Let’s Celebrate.” She surprised her guests by handing out, as a prize to children who win the Easter Egg Roll and Egg Hunt, this winning design in the form of a poster. Felicity Ng is a 10-year-old in 4th grade at Audubon Elementary School in Redmond, Washington. Her artwork was chosen as the 2016 Easter Egg Roll Program Cover. Felicity enjoys drawing, writing, and playing piano, and wanted to create a patriotic egg design to commemorate President and Mrs. Obama’s final Easter Egg Roll.
Alexia de Costa is an 11-year-old in 5th grade at Queen of Apostles Catholic School in Alexandria, Virginia. Her artwork was chosen as the 2016 Easter Egg Roll Poster. Alexia enjoys painting, reading, and writing and is excited to participate with the White House in whatever ways she can. Both students were absolutely thrilled that they were chosen amongst the hundreds of contestants to become the winning artists.
Highlights of this memorable holiday event can be viewed WhiteHouse.gov and millions of Tweets could be seen on Twitter on March 28th @ @WHEasterEggRoll.
Monday has never been so much this year as it was at the White House on March 28, 2016, for the Easter Egg Roll and ‘Let’s Celebrate.’
