Jail inmates create colorful Easter eggs for South Lake Tahoe kids

Can you imagine dying 4,000 eggs for your family's Easter egg hunt? Probably not as many of us may have had enough after two dozen, but that is exactly what local inmates are tasked with.

Each year, the South Lake Tahoe Optimist Club hosts a community egg hunt at Lake Tahoe Community College, and for the last ten years the inmates at the El Dorado County Jail have been coloring the hard boiled eggs for the event.

Normally the kitchen crew at the jail both boils the eggs and colors them, but due to a staffing shortage at the jail they could only color them.

This all started when Randy Peschon, current El Dorado County Under-Sheriff, worked at the jail. He was also a member of the Optimist Club who put on the annual pancake breakfast in South Lake Tahoe. Inmates in the culinary arts program started to make the pancake batter for the event.

"We take the culinary guys to the breakfast so they can do community service," Jeannette Shippee, Correctional Food Service Coordinator. "They are part of the community and this will help them feel like they belong when released."

Now when cracking open the colored eggs from Saturday's Easter Egg Hunt, you'll know the labor of love that went into each and every egg.