May 15, 2025
MARIETTA, Ga. — Marlon Longacre, associate pastor of Community Engagement at Piedmont Church in Marietta, orchestrated a mammoth Egg Drop at Sprayberry High School for the 13th year on Saturday, April 19. Each year, the spectacular event has grown, and this year, more than 20,000 people showed up for the extravaganza. More than 95,000 eggs with candy inside were waiting to be found by excited children.
Longacre agrees with Victor Hugo, who said, “To love is to act.” While many things are important in God’s economy, love should compel us to look out the window more than it prompts us to look in the mirror. Serving others is always better than self-centeredness.
Piedmont’s senior pastor Ike Reighard hails Longacre as the champion of community engagement and has unleashed him to impact the region with demonstrations of compassion and service.
When it comes to penetrating a community, Piedmont Church in Marietta does not leave a stone unturned. Longacre is passionate about leading his church family to look out the window at the multiplicity of needs and effectively inspires and challenges his church to impact his Jerusalem with the love of Christ – and it is working.
Longacre has managed to build meaningful relationships with the 20 schools in the Sprayberry and Kell school districts and the 13 schools in Marietta, and each school helped to promote the Egg Drop. Each of those schools was well represented among those who showed up on Saturday.
A helicopter flew over the Sprayberry football field twice and dropped eggs, but thousands of eggs and candy were also scattered around that did not fall from the sky. There were separate hunts for special needs children and toddlers. The Egg Drop lasted from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM. Laughter and merriment prevailed from the beginning to the end.
Longacre remarked, “Children are the single greatest unifying factor in the community, and children in need will inspire businesses, civic clubs, schools, and the government to respond to their needs. The church is amiss when they fail to expend every effort to reach, help, and bless today’s children and youth.”
To provide for the expenses of the Egg Drop, Longacre solicits sponsors. This year 41 businesses and entities agreed to help underwrite the event. The community engagement pastor emphasized that there is a 90-95 percent retention rate among the sponsors because they are sold on the value of the pre-Easter festivities for the kids of Northeast Cobb.
Admission is free, and all who register receive a wristband for identification. For a small fee, the children will have access to a great variety of inflatable bounce houses and slides and a photo with the Easter Bunny. Food trucks from local fast-food restaurants find that their presence at the event generates significant revenue for them, and the sponsors benefit from having the opportunity to market their products and services to 20,000 people.
Other than the manpower required, Piedmont Church incurs no expense for the preparation, coordination, and implementation of the event. However, last year the Egg Drop netted more than $34,500,000 (Longacre anticipates more this year when all the receipts are counted) and while some of the funds were allocated for the purchase of the eggs and candy, etc., the bulk of the money will go to Sprayberry High School to meet specific needs for the band, the ROTC, the football team and other needs.
The Piedmont Church, youth and children’s groups had a designated spot near the entrance to the Sprayberry football field where all the people were given information announcing various facets of the church’s ministry and all the summer projects designed specifically for children.
What happened at the Sprayberry High School campus on the Saturday before Easter is just one example of Piedmont’s effort to penetrate the region with the love and compassion of Christ. Longacre leads a ministry in the church called “Love Does.” He contends that love is not just a declaration of affection or a feeling of benevolence, but an action, a response, an engagement, something that one does.
Piedmont Church gives their members an opportunity to contribute to a “Love Does” munificent fund each week, and the people have responded with an overflow of generosity. Longacre confirmed that since 2018, the church has given away $2.2 million in cash and goods through the “Love Does” budget allocation.
The financial resources have given Longacre the freedom to go to the schools in the area and ask, “What do you need to fulfill your objectives for your school or your class.” One school said, "We need to be able to provide sensory learning for our disadvantaged students.”
In Longacre’s office today, you will find boxes stacked everywhere with the sensory devices that will help special needs children process differences or sensory sensitivities, regulate their sensory input, and improve their ability to engage with their environment.
The cost of these devices is not inexpensive, but the need is great, and the benefits are significant. Piedmont Church will be placing the sensory devices in Hightower Trail Middle School. It will be the 45th sensory room the church has provided in 44 different schools in the city of Marietta and in Cobb and Cherokee Counties. The church is putting love into action, meeting needs, and touching lives with the compassion of Jesus.
Piedmont Church has members of their congregation serving in the Sprayberry High School concession stands during the football season, and their service to other schools has resulted in the Sprayberry, Marietta, Lassiter, Kell, Etowah, and Kennesaw Mountain High School public address announcers saying each time one of their teams make a first down, “That was a Piedmont Church first down.”
Longacre explained, “Love is a choice. Love is something you do. Love always moves and acts with an urgency.”
