Findlay, Ohio · Holy Week, 1999 – 2016
On Common Ground
Each Holy Week for nearly two decades, Roger Powell shaped tons of sand into the story of Easter — the cross, the tomb and the Resurrection. It was free to everyone. This is its archive.
- Sand
- from about 30 to 340+ tons
- At its largest
- 14 ft high × 70 ft wide
- Admission
- Always free, for people of every faith
- Easter mornings
- Sunrise services, open to all
Sand, shovels and fellowship
By trade Roger is a landscape designer, so moving earth came naturally. But the Easter sculpture was something else. He made no money from it and had no corporate or church sponsor. It was simply there — day and night — for anyone who wanted to stop by.
It began in Riverside Park and later moved to the Hancock County Fairgrounds. Each year volunteers helped haul and pack the sand, and on Easter morning people gathered for a non-denominational sunrise service in front of it.
The name said what Roger believes: we all walk on common ground.
“The sand brings them in, but the fellowship, that’s really where it’s at.”
Nearly twenty Easters
How it grew
1999
The first sculpture
Roger shaped his first Easter scene in sand during Holy Week, using about 30 tons of sand. (Most accounts date it to 1999; a few counted the years from a little later.)
Photo coming soonAn early sculpture, around 1999–2001 2004
A story that inspired a story
The Toledo Blade wrote about the sculptures — and about a novel they inspired. Roger said he felt he simply had to sculpt Jesus in sand, without knowing exactly how or why.
2006
180 tons in Riverside Park
With the help of volunteers, 180 tons of sand dumped in Riverside Park became the scene by Good Friday. One year a fierce storm battered the sculpture — and it was rebuilt, “resurrected,” in time for Easter.
Photo coming soonRiverside Park, mid-2000s 2008
Noah’s Ark
Still in Riverside Park, the theme turned to Noah’s Ark — chosen because of the Blanchard River flooding Findlay had just lived through. Many volunteers helped, and Easter morning brought a sunrise service.
By 2011
The biggest yet, at the Fairgrounds
Moved to the Hancock County Fairgrounds, the sculpture stood 14 feet high and 70 feet wide — more than 340 tons of sand. It showed the cross, the tomb and the Resurrection, with Bible verses and a crown of thorns, and stayed open day and night into early May.
Photo coming soonThe Hancock County Fairgrounds sculpture, 14 ft × 70 ft Mid-2010s
Thousands of visitors
Thousands came each year. One Easter, Roger counted more than 900 people at the sunrise service.
2016
The final sculpture
After 18 Holy Weeks, Roger shaped his last sand sculpture — and handed the story on to everyone who had stood in front of one.
Photo coming soonThe final sculpture, 2016
Dates and numbers come from newspaper and TV reports over the years (Toledo Blade, WTOL, ABC/WTVG, Humans of Findlay). Where reports differ, we’ve said so. Have a correction? Please tell us.
What it left behind
A legacy in sand
Sand doesn’t last — that was part of its meaning. What lasted was the people: the volunteers with shovels, the thousands who walked past it day and night, the families who stood together at sunrise on Easter morning.
In 2022 the City of Findlay proclaimed April 14 “Roger Powell Day,” and Findlay High School named him a Distinguished Alumnus — a thank-you from the town that came to see the sand every spring.
Help build the archive
Were you there?
Share your photos and memories.
Roger’s family is gathering pictures and stories from the Easter sculptures — any year, any size, any camera. A photo of your kids in front of the sand, a memory of a cold sunrise service, a newspaper clipping in a drawer: it all helps.
Share a photo or memoryOpens your email. Attach photos if you have them — and let us know if we may show them here.
In the collection
