By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Officials with Alabaster’s Cultivate Church are making their final plans to drop thousands of plastic Easter eggs from a helicopter onto the field at Thompson High School’s Larry Simmons Stadium.

Cultivate Church, which began meeting in the Alabaster home of Brandon and Jennifer Matthews last summer, will host the free event on Saturday, April 7 from 10 a.m.-noon at Larry Simmons Stadium off Thompson Road. Since announcing the event several weeks ago, Matthews said church officials have gotten “a lot of response” from the community.

“It’s generated a lot of excitement. People seem to be surprised that it’s free,” Matthews said. “The whole community has come together to help get the word out.”

Matthews said he was unsure how many people will attend the event, but encouraged visitors to arrive early to register and secure their spot on the field.

“We are expecting at least a couple thousand people, but since this is our first year to do this, we are really not sure what to expect,” Matthews said. “The egg drop will be before (11 a.m.), but we are encouraging everyone to get there by 10.”

During the event, church officials will scatter eggs across the football field before dropping thousands more from a helicopter hovering over the stadium. In total, the event will involve about 20,000 plastic eggs.

Event organizers will split the field into different sections for different ages, and will work to ensure each child gets about the same amount of candy, Matthews said.

Matthews said the plastic eggs placed and dropped on the field will be empty, but kids can collect them and exchange them for bags of candy.

Cultivate Church officials recently set up a website for the event at Theeggdrop.tv, which allows event participants to register for the egg drop in advance.

“It’s been a lot of fun organizing this, because the community has been so excited about it,” Matthews said.