Pleasant Valley High School is an active participant that often highlights events in the local community–like Chico’s event in Degarmo park featuring Nightmare Before Christmas, funded by CARD. A timeless stop motion movie by the famous Tim Burton about the one and only pumpkin king, Jack Skellington, discovering the beauties of Christmas, featuring beloved songs and a story with the perfect balance of engaging and spooky. The event featured fun Halloween colors, costumes, and magical music bringing the movie to life, as well as small businesses and free activities.
The event displayed amazing food from tacos trucks to mini donuts. The food was a huge hit, with everyone lining up for tastes. Businesses such as Kinder’s with delicious meats, to a small humble donut business were present. The aromas were hard to ignore as the food was ultimately fresh and a hit at the event. As people ate the unforgettable food, people will surely become persuaded to come to their shops in town for more.
There were many family friendly activities at this event including the costume contest where participants ranged from grown adults to babies. People entered the contest and walked around the park displaying their cute, fun, and creative costumes. The contest was an amazing way to display a friendly competition where nobody left with hard feelings. The costume contest truly highlighted the majority of the park where everyone enjoyed seeing the fun, creative, and spooky costumes.
People did truly have an amazing time at the movie night where everyone didn’t just sit around but were active. There were stands where you could have your face painted or color at the coloring station and hand made coloring sheets to color in. But if the kids didn’t want to do that or if parents wanted to burn their children’s energy there was a bouncy house where toddlers to kids could have fun. No one was bored at the movie in the park with there being so many entertaining and active things you could do.
The Movie in the Park was run by Lindey Barret who organized the magical memorable event for adults and children alike. When she was questioned by why a movie night is beneficial when we can easily watch them at home she replied with “Having a movie night in the park is really great, because it brings people to the park that may not have come before and it bring opportunities for small shops to open up and expand their business to be able to grow,” showing how a movie in the park can be a healthy way to be with the community as well as spend quality time with your loved ones.
Ms. Barret was also asked the question of why they chose Nightmare before Christmas, to which she responded with, “Because it is fun to watch and brings family together as well as debating if it is a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie–but it is mainly a Halloween movie.” An amazing response as to why this family friendly and mystical movie is great for all ages. But we didn’t just interview the main person running the event, we also interviewed an employee named Ariel where we asked what her favorite part of the event was. She replied, “The costume contest was my favorite, everyone did a good job with creativity and fun.” a kind response to a high point in the event that truly set the entire event’s tone.
This reveals how Chico is an amazing community where everyone can gather and have an amazing fun and active night. The Movie in the Park was an unforgettable event with fantastic music, food, and activities. The movie was also a great hit where Chico gathered all ages to enjoy a classic and whimsical movie. This shows how amazing and fun Chico can be when we gather together to make small events have big impacts!
