2 weeks Ago By Sanika Bhargaw
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) -- Families across the Triangle spent Saturday night making their last-minute preparations for Easter Sunday.
At the State Capitol, multiple churches were getting ready to hold their annual sunrise service.The sunrise service is a decades-old tradition. Organizers say it is a way to welcome a bigger community than they could in one church.
"Everyone comes together and it's dark and you leave in the sunlight. It just makes for a beautiful start of Easter,” said Kenny Krause, chair of the Sunrise Service at the Capitol Committee.Six churches in downtown Raleigh will gather on the east side of the State Capitol on Easter Sunday for a sunrise service.
“It’s kind of a come one, come all in downtown Raleigh,” Krause said.Krause has been part of the service for over 20 years. He said this is a way to welcome a wider community.
“If you have any hesitancy about going into a church, because you might think people will say, ‘Well, where have you been all year?’ The beauty of this is we only have one service a year, so everyone's in the same boat,” he said.Families around the Triangle spent the evening doing some last-minute shopping.“We still do baskets and Easter egg hunts and mass, mass in the morning,” said Christine Myers.
Myers has two daughters, including one in college. She stopped by Trader Joe’s on Saturday to get some gift cards to add to Easter baskets."Poor college students.
Food, you know, is getting up there for everybody. And so, yes, Easter basket fillers,” she said.Myers said she is lucky she is not feeling the pinch too much, but she has noticed the higher prices – especially on eggs.
Ed Gallatin, doing some last-minute grocery shopping, said he has definitely felt the impact."We're probably buying less, and we're on average spending $50 more a week,” he said.Gallatin said his family’s Easter is fairly low-key, but he says his sister, who makes big meals for the holiday, is spending hundreds of dollars on the food.
He is worried things will only get worse.“Ninety days from now, everything might be 34 percent more expensive because of the threat of tariffs and what's going on,” he said.Shoppers said the higher prices are making things a little harder this year, but they say they're glad to spend the holiday with family.
“When they get older, you know, it's not always easy to come together. But this year it is nice that we have them both home,” Myers said..
