Newswatch 16’s Valeria Quiñones takes us to the first Champ’s Free Easter Egg hunt hosted by Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.

MOOSIC, Pa. — 10,000 eggs were scooped off the PNC baseball field in Scranton in less than a minute Saturday morning as more than 2,000 children ran to grab however many they could.

“I thought it was at least going to take about like 5 minutes, but it only took like 40 seconds. I like how everyone just raged onto the field and took all the eggs in like negative seconds,” says Jackson Miles from Scranton.

“It was crazy. There were just so many. Scared because I thought, ‘There’s like so many kids!'” says Ben Grippo, a kid himself, from Scranton. 

One little girl from Jenkins Township had a basket full of eggs. She says, “I was thinking, ‘I can get so much’. I put my bucket down, and I got like one by one.” Parents were not allowed to help their children grab eggs.

The egg hunting craziness is part of the first Champ’s Free Easter Egg hunt presented by the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. 

President of the RailRiders, Shawn Reiley, says he hopes to make this one of many yearly traditions at PNC Field. “It’s nice to give back, and you meet some new people, but you see a lot of smiles today. It’s really a great event. It makes it worthwhile when you see all those smiles, and people coming up and saying, ‘Thank you for doing such a nice thing for us.’ says Reiley.

Staff volunteered to help put it all together. After the egg hunt, Champ and his friend, the Easter Bunny, took photos with children and their families.

Koryn Brown from Jenkins Township says, “I love that it brings all people from different areas together, different kids of different ages. They can all bond and have a good time.”

“There aren’t a lot of areas, it seems like, in this area that do something like this, so it’s a nice event for families to come around and let the kids go wild and let them do their thing, right? Yeah,” says Ryan Cummings from Duryea. 

One little boy also has a basket full of eggs. He says, “I already opened like 3. I found this one, my favorite, and I found an orange one like this.” 

His mom, Allison Fruehan-Nah, jumped in to ask him, “Your favorite tootsie rolls?”

Many families say they’re already looking forward to coming back next year.