Think of it as a drive-in with no cars. Or, consider it a day in
the park with a free movie playing on an outdoor screen. Either
way, think of it as free, and a chance to celebrate the close of
summer this Labor Day weekend.
Morgan Hill – Think of it as a drive-in with no cars. Or, consider it a day in the park with a free movie playing on an outdoor screen.
Either way, think of it as free, and a chance to celebrate the close of summer this Labor Day weekend.
With actor-comedian Eddie Murphy’s “Daddy Day Care” billed as the feature presentation, the Family FunFest and Movie Night Under the Stars is returning to the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center after a one-year hiatus.
The admission-free event kicks off at 4pm, Sept. 2, with a smattering of karaoke and martial arts demonstrations, among other attractions, on the lawn by the community center’s amphitheater.
There will be plenty of food and drink, with booths serving hot dogs, pizza, ice cream, snow cones, candy and drinks. Beer and wine will also be sold to the adult crowd.
As soon as it gets dark, volunteers will serve free popcorn and the movie will start as the audience relaxes on beach blankets under the stars.
“It’s the last chance to get out and enjoy the summer,” said Debbie Tawney, the event’s chairwoman. “It’s a family thing.”
Organizers are spending about $3,300 renting movie equipment and a licensed copy of the film, which is a light-hearted comedy about two men who get laid off and have to become stay-at-home dads when they can’t find jobs.
The cost of the event is being offset by sponsorships from local businesses who will set up information booths and even project ads onto the movie screen.
Tawney said the movie screen on the amphitheater stage is “not quite movie theater size, but a fairly large screen.”
The event is being “backed” by the Morgan Hill Community Foundation, Tawney said, a non-profit umbrella group that supports efforts to enrich the greater Morgan Hill area.
“The goal is to break even,” she said. “But if we don’t, they pay the difference.”
But organizers expect a large audience, just like in years past.
The event debuted in 2002 as a class project by Leadership Morgan Hill, a training and development program founded in 1995 to promote community service. Many of the roughly 30 volunteers at this year’s event hail from that program.
For three summers in a row, the outdoor movie night successfully drew hundreds of residents to the city’s newly built amphitheater, Tawney said.
Nevertheless, the popular event had to be postponed last summer when the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce had to pull its sponsorship.
Tawney, a teacher at El Toro Elementary School, was instrumental in lining up a new sponsor this year. She was able to use her connections as a board member at the Morgan Hill Community Foundation.
“I asked them if they’d be interested, and they said ‘yes,’ ” Tawney said.
