Every year, the White House holds an art event called “Celebrating National Guard Families,” where children of the National Guard get the opportunity to design Easter eggs for a contest. In this year’s flyer for the contest, it states that an Easter egg design submission “must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements.” “As part of the White House Easter traditions, America’s Egg Farmers – for nearly 50 years – have proudly presented an intricately decorated Commemorative Easter Egg to the First Lady of the United States. In 2021, the White House expanded on this longstanding tradition by displaying youth-designed Easter eggs in the White House East Colonnade,” the flyer explained. “On behalf of First Lady Jill Biden, The Adjutants General of the National Guard are asking youth from National Guard families across the United States and all U.S. territories to submit artwork inspired by the theme ‘Celebrating our Military Families,’” the flyer continued. Children are encouraged to design eggs with images based on their own lives with their own ideas. “Selected designs representing the unique experience and stories of National Guard children will be brought to life on real hen eggs by talented egg artists from across the country and displayed at the White House this Easter and Passover season,” the flyer said. Children also will not be allowed to create any material that promotes, “bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any group or individual or promotes discrimination based on race, gender, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age” in their designs. The rules appear to mirror the ones that have been in place for the longstanding contest. The winner will have their design selected and painted by artists on real eggs and will be displayed at the White House as well as presented to the First Lady.

First Lady Jill Biden, who was a teacher for over 30 years, will be continuing her theme of “EGGucation” for the annual East Egg Roll. “A teacher for more than 30 years, First Lady Jill Biden is continuing her theme of ‘EGGucation’ for the event, transforming the South Lawn and Ellipse into a school community, full of fun educational activities for children of all ages to enjoy,” a statement from the White House read. Along with the egg roll and Easter egg hunt, the event will also include, a Physical “EGGucation” (PE) Zone, a School House Activity Area, Reading Nook, Field Trip to the Farm, Picture Day and a snack tent.

Emily Metz, American Egg Board President and CEO, shared with Fox News about their partnership over the years. “I think it’s important to know that everything we do from a marketing and promotion standpoint, because we are a check off, we have very strict guidelines under the USDA.” She added, “We all have to follow kind of guidelines, which essentially, number one, we can’t discriminate against any other commodity…. We can’t go out there and say, ‘hey, pork is awful and we only should only get eggs.’ We have to be very, clear about that. We also can promote one type of egg over the other type of egg. So we have to be, excuse the pun, egg-nostic. And we also, most importantly, can’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual identity, any of that.” Metz stated, “So when we say, can’t be overtly religious, we just can’t be seen to be promoting one religion over the other, the same way we can’t be seen to be promoting one political viewpoint or ideology over the other. We have to be totally neutral in everything we do and have it just be focused on egg promotion and marketing activities. And this is obviously a huge opportunity for us to showcase the incredible eggs in a really fun and unique way.”