The men and women of Porter EMS and INHealth Integrated Care came together bright and early on March 19th to prepare for their 5th Annual Breakfast With The Easter Bunny event that will be happening this Saturday, March 24th.
Located at the Station 2 Porter EMS building at 2206 Laporte Avenue, Porter EMS Director Ann Brandi alongside owner of INHealth Integrated Care, Ron Donahue, spearheaded this morning’s egg-filling production line – the largest in the county.
“We started filling the eggs with candy early this week and we are shy of 3,000 completed with another 3,000 more to go,” expressed Brandi. “Our EMS team has been filling eggs in between calls, and during down time – we really love to help our community and will also be helping on the day of the event.”
Brandi also noted, “Porter EMS was awarded with an AMBY award from the American Ambulance Association for our community service efforts – in the past, we’ve donated 500 turkeys, we do training with the National Lakeshore, and hosted a health conference last year."
According to Donahue, the good people of the South Haven Salvation Army are set to prepare an additional 4,000 eggs. Inside of the eggs will be an assortment of candies and stickers to claim prizes such as Barbie dolls, Crayola kits, Lego sets, a bag of Albanese gummy bears and much more. Albanese has donated 1,200 bags for the event.
“We might get up to 10,000 eggs and as of last night, we have decided that we want to make about 2,000 dyed edible eggs for the kids,” added Donahue.
Last year’s event was such a success with well over 650 persons in attendance. This year, Porter EMS and INHealth were able to get a lot of helping hands on deck to prepare for and participate during the event.
“Our local Starbucks here on Laporte Ave has donated coffee and hot chocolate for the kids, the Residences Senior Living, El Salto of Valpo and the chef over at Park Place of St. John will be providing food,” stated Brandi. “The chef over at St. John will be preparing about 600 portions of cinnamon buns with eggs and toppings for the kids to add!” exclaimed Donahue.
The event that will take place at the Porter County Expo Center will have two seatings to accommodate the anticipated large turn-out. The first seating will be between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Immediately following that will be the egg hunt that will last for about a half of an hour. The second seating will then begin at 10:30 a.m. There will also be a live band, bounce house, stations for children to draw and a lot more activities on the day of.
“Lori Daly, the Director of the Porter County Expo Center, has been so gracious enough to provide us a discount to hold the event there – that way, the majority of the proceeds can be allocated to the county’s local food pantries and Salvation Army,” Brandi stated thankfully.
“Last year, we were able to raise $12,000 and gave it to the Salvation Army,” added Donahue. “We wanted to provide something fun for the community. All of the different health care communities came together and cooked. In our last event, we raised about $100,000 for veterans so we wanted to do something for Christmas and Easter too.”
“The hospital has also donated pancake mix, syrup, fresh fruit and granola bars,” concluded Donahue.
To pre-register, you can purchase tickets online via www.indianahealth.care. Children ages 3 and under are free and tickets can also be purchased the day of at the door.
