New Haven Independent

East Rock web designer David Streever just had such fond memories of his grandfather carrying on as the Easter Bunny and hiding eggs during his East Haddam growing up, that he gathered several dozen people, mainly through Facebook, to color eggs and hide them near the ranger station in the park.

When kids like Maya Garcia and her parents came and the hunt was on, a happy outcome was almost guaranteed because Streever and company not only had provided helpful hunting hints, but with a bounteous 300 eggs hidden in semi-plain sight, it was hard not to feel that the bunny this year had not been engaged in a kind of ovarian littering.

Still, a good time was had by lots of families, such as those of Amistad Academy Director Matt Taylor, here motivating his wife and kids to become high-achieving Easter egg finders.

While your reporter has had extensive experience covering Easter egg hunts, he was perplexed by the piñata. Had Streever’s grandpa bunny had a piñata in East Haddam? No.

Therefore, whence came this one?

“I’m not quite sure,” said Streever (pictured on the right) as two-year-old Angel Chao, with Shanghai-born dad Dong Man Chao - a pediatric neuroscientist confronting his first piñata - gamely went after the candy-filled globe.

Streever credited the piñata Easter innovation to his friend Lisa Amanasi who said the inspiration to create the piñata came because, “well, we just had too much candy lying around. So, around a balloon, we fashioned a papier mache’ outer layer and then popped the balloon.” She assured the investigative press that except for the balloon, all the ingredients of the piñata — corn starch and sugar mainly — were environmentally sound.

LEED ceertified and stuffed with hard candy and soft, that piñata was proving itself resilient. It had survived even the mighty blows of four-year-old Garcia and two-year-old Chao. But it had to be broken.

All eyes, as usual, turned to their leader, David Streever, who knows how to solve a problem, because when he’s not midwifing piñatas he’s also designing web sites to help coordinate health care delivery in rural Kenya for a Columbia University project.

“I took a look at Doug,” said Streever, referring to musician Doug Slawin. “He just had a glint in his eye that he was, well, committed to destroying the piñata.”

“No, no,” Slawin (pictured at the top of the story) defended himself. “All I felt was a need, after all those attempts by the kids, to, well, liberate the candy for the children.”

So, he gathered himself, he did his visualization exercises, there was even a moment of quiet meditation. Then, with a mighty whack of his broom handle, Slawin struck, and slew the pinata. Reese’s peanut butter cups, Hershey’s kisses and the bounty of the entire candy kingdom poured out. The kids swooped in, and New Haven’s first East Rock Easter Egg Hunt and Piñata Blast (EREEHPB) was born.

The kids, the parents, and especially Streever seemed delighted. He did right by his grandpa, and Streever announced he was going to do this every year. For more play by play or to get involved with EREEHPB as it is already planning next year’s event, contact Streever here.