The most popular outdoor event of the year, the South End Library’s Easter Egg Hunt, will take place on Easter Sunday, April 12, at 11:00 AM. If the past is any guide, it will be over by 11:05 AM, thanks to the enthusiastic and highly focused young South End hunters. There will be a separate area cordoned off for the very young, and you, the parents and caregivers, can decide who needs to be there to be protected from the older crowd. We will have baskets available for those who forgot theirs.

The Easter bunny is already looking forward to distributing the eggs filled with chocolates, poems and knock-knock jokes. There will be delicious refreshments for the adults provided by FOSEL’s culinary team. We’ll implore the gods of good weather to do what they can to make it the best Easter Egg Hunt, yet.

You will see a huge crowd in Library Park on Monday, June 3 when Little Groove music performers will bring song and dance and invite all of you to sing and dance along with them. The program is sponsored by the Friends of the South End Library.

Sara Wheeler founded Little Groove pre-school for music and art years ago when she realized that there was a lack of music programs in the Boston area that fit the developmental needs of infants and toddlers. She wanted to make a program that helped children develop better communication skills, trust, language and overall well being.

Little Groove classes are conducted in a live music setting. During the class teachers perform songs playing live instruments. These songs are fun, catchy and repetitive and help teach your child about his/her environment. Children interact at their own level. The classes also incorporate brightly colored instruments that your child can touch, feel and shake.

…and it will be over by 11:05 AM, so come early. As always, the Easter bunny will distribute many hundreds of eggs filled with chocolates, poems and knock-knock jokes. There will be delicious refreshments, warm coffee and cool lemonade after the hunt.

FOSEL has already ordered good weather and hope it will be delivered in time. We have baskets for those who can’t find their own from last year. We expect the Area D4 police to be available, as they always have been, for those crossing Tremont Street.

There will be a separate area cordoned off for the very young so they won’t be crushed by their enthusiastic and experienced older hunter colleagues. For those whose naps ran a bit late, the Easter bunny will have some extra eggs reserved especially for you..

The next South End Library Easter Egg Hunt will take place, rain or shine (well...if it's a Nor'easter we might reconsider) in Library Park on April 1 between 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM. In reality, it will be over by 11:03 AM as the crowd of children that breaks through the fence at 11:00 AM sharp is primed for the hunt, as the image above attests.

There will be more than 1,500 eggs filled with chocolate eggs, poems and knock-knock jokes (after all, we are a library Friends group), and delicious baked goods, coffee and lemonade will be available for all. We will have sectioned of a safe space for the defenseless very young children who would otherwise be run over by their older and intensely focused friends. The Easter Bunny has been convinced to do it one more time and apparently can't wait for the Hunt: it is the Bunny's favorite event of the year. 

We have some free baskets for those who can't find the ones from last year. They can be taken home and do not have to be returned. As always, we request and usually receive a police presence from our officers at Area D4. The gates will be closed until the countdown at 10:59:30 AM. Balloons decorating the fences can be taken home as well. 

This is usually the first event after the New England winter season has ended, and likely the last in Library Park as it is now constituted. If the weather gods are with us, it should be a lovely day, and a good farewell to the old and tired park. Next year in...well, maybe not Jerusalem but certainly in a better green space at the corner of Tremont Street and Rutland Square.