Kids work at theater over summer

It was just before six o'clock on Friday night and Brendan Parrish, 14, was the first to arrive at The Historic Strand Theater for his work shift. Alyissa Hollenback, 16, quickly joined him. Brendan, who just moved into town from Arizona, started working at the theater about a week ago, where as Alyissa has been working at the theater for a couple of weeks. Upon arriving, Alyissa and Brendan were joined by Rhiannon Hobbs, 9, and Michael Perkins, 10.

Alyissa and Brendan are the two oldest kids that have worked at the theater. Typically, kids who work at the theater fall between eight to twelve years old. Still, in a community where jobs aren't readily available for teenagers, working at the theater has given Alyissa and Brendan the chance to acquire some work skills and earn a little extra cash.

Seven Hobbs, who manages the theater, said that he wanted to give local kids the opportunity to acquire some work skills as a young age. He said that it's important though that he first meet with the parents and has their permission before the kids are allowed to work at the theater. He has a few different kids who he rotates in and out to work at the theater Friday through Sunday when films are showing.

"It's been working really well," Hobbs said. "It gives them something to do and allows them to develop some work skills at a young age including customer service. They work hard and they're awesome."

Alyissa said that she typically runs the popcorn machine and after gathering supplies began to make the popcorn. She was quick to toss out some old popcorn seeds that were stale opening up a new batch. Seven asks her to make five batches for the night as Shrek Forever After is showing again and he's expecting a good turnout.

"People eat lots of popcorn," Alyissa comments. "Sometimes they come in just to buy the popcorn."

Alyissa said that she really enjoys working at the theater. She said that she believes it is an important place and staple in the community.

"Seven is really cool," Alyissa said. "It's great what he's trying to do with the place. It's also neat that our small town has our own movie theater. We need to keep it going. Once the pool closes for the day on Friday, this is one of the last places to go for entertainment."

While Alyissa is busy making popcorn, Brendan has restocked the candy, making room for some Skittles. Realizing that they are super low on drinking straws for pop, he walks over to Castles, where the only straws he finds are flexible, bending straws. Brendan said that he started working at the theater so that he could make a little extra spending cash. He said that one of the really nice things about the theater is that when you come to enjoy a film, you're paying an outrageous amount for your ticket or for a bag of popcorn and drink to enjoy during the movie.

While the two older kids are busy working behind the counter putting everything in place, Rhiannon, who is Seven's daughter, gets right to work as well. She cleans out the ice box, dumps the trash, straightens the candy, gets the tickets ready for the evening and takes a turn on the vacuum.

"It feels good helping and it helps out my dad," Rhiannon said, who proudly claims that she's his assistant manager.

Rhiannon later joins Michael down at the front of the theater. They start working to sweep up the last of the popcorn that's been spilled from prior showings.

"At first it's (working) hard," Rhiannon said, "but it becomes more fun every time."

Michael admitted that at first he didn't want to sweep up the popcorn and would have liked to just leave it lying on the floor.

"I didn't want to do this at first," Michael noted, motioning to the popcorn that lies across the floor that needs cleaned up, "but I figured I should just get it done as it's something that needs to be taken care of."

Both of them admitted that it was nice that they were both working on cleaning up the popcorn as it would take a longer amount of time if they were doing it by themselves. Rhiannon and Michael commented that they really like the theater.

"It's so in shape," Rhiannon said, "but it's old. But it is all still nice."

By 6:40 p.m., everything is taken care of and the kids are getting into place, ready for the evening's flow of customers. Alyissa said that it doesn't get boring very often working as they have a window that allows them to see the screen where the moving is showing. However, as Brendan pointed out, this will be the fourth time he's seen Shrek Forever After and he admits it's a bit old by now. After 7:30 p.m., the kids get their own small popcorn, small soda and a candy at no charge. And as Brendan put it, they've got free movies for life if they continue to work at the theater.

The kids themselves enjoy a wide range of movie genres and will often talk about different movies when they're not watching the one that's playing. Brendan said he enjoys comedy, while Rhiannon mentioned adventure and action movies. Michael said one of the last movies he really enjoyed was Avatar and Alyissa noted she enjoyed a little bit of everything.

Once the movie is over, however, and the customers have left, the kids take time to clean up and put things back where they belong. But it's all in a night's work.