Photo by Deb Gau Sylis and Sofia Lopez open the eggs they found during the hunt at the Campus Religious Center at Southwest Minnesota State University.

MARSHALL — As families gathered around the edges of the gymnasium at True Light Christian School, all eyes were on the hundreds of colorful plastic eggs scattered across the center of the floor.

When a volunteer gave the signal, the scramble was on.

“I got a ton of eggs,” Maverick Thooft said a few minutes later, as his family helped him open the eggs he found to get the candy inside.

Area residents celebrated Easter with a variety of family events over the weekend. Churches and community groups in Marshall hosted egg hunts, Easter-themed games and more.

“We’ve been doing this for quite a while,” Ara Vance said of Grace Life Church’s annual egg hunt.

On Sunday morning, kids split up into different age groups to collect eggs scattered through the True Light gym and hallways.

Vance said volunteers from Bible study groups and Hope Harbor help fill all the eggs with goodies in the lead-up to Easter. While this year’s egg hunt was held indoors because of the rainy weather, it looked like there was still a good turnout, she said.

Student groups at Southwest Minnesota State University also took their Easter festivities indoors over the weekend. At the Campus Religious Center, crowds of kids searched behind sofa cushions and in nooks and crannies for eggs with prize tickets inside. Families also posed for pictures with the Easter bunny, and did Easter-themed crafts and activities.

“It’s been fun. We worked really hard to put this together,” said Lexi Dietz, club president of LuMin, the Lutheran Campus Ministry at SMSU.

LuMin worked together with the SMSU Newman Club to organize the Easter activities on Saturday morning.

LuMin Chaplain Shanda Walker said the turnout was good.

“This year was a lot busier than last year,” she said.

Walker said it took volunteers a couple of weeks to get everything together for the Easter celebration. She estimated they filled around 2,000 plastic eggs with candy and prize tickets.

Volunteers said it felt good to be able to have fun events for kids and families in the community.

“I know some families can’t always put everything together,” especially with the weather making it tough to do outdoor egg hunts, Dietz said.

“I’m glad we could do this for the community,” Walker said.