Tampa Bay area bomb squad members make beeping Easter eggs for visually impaired
(WFLA) – Most kids love Easter egg hunts and finding the prize egg. But for kids who are visually impaired, Easter is a bit more challenging.
Tampa Bay area bomb squad members are making Easter possible this year for the blind.
An Easter egg assembly line looked much more like a surgical procedure.
“A basic switch, a little beeper or buzzer and then a nine volt battery and it’s just a basic circuit that we sauter together and we build into the eggs.”
Bomb squad members took a break from their usual training and turned their focus to Easter eggs and kids with disabilities.
“This gives these children the ability to [go] out and hunt Easter eggs like all the other kids. Just gives them that little bit extra ability to be able to locate the eggs utilizing the beeping Easter egg,” said Sergeant Jarrett Seal with the Tampa Police Department bomb squad.
The hunt will benefit close to 50 kids who are visually impaired.
“People will see them and look at everything they can’t do. But we look at them and see everything that they can do! We help the parents see that your kid can do these things,” said Kristen Mongelluzzi, a teacher with Lighthouse Pinellas.
For years, nothing like this was available for the blind or impaired.
“As a teacher for the visually impaired, that is our main goal. Is that anything that a static child participates in, we want our kids to participate in because they deserve this, all kids deserve that,” said Mongelluzzi.
Not only will kids get to have an Easter egg hunt, but they’ll get to have one whenever they want.
“This year [they’re] all going to take home a bag of Easter eggs donated by the bomb squad and now they can do it whenever they want to, and they can go to grandma’s house and have an egg hunt or they can go to the community egg hunt and have one there,” said Mongelluzzi.