“Here. Let me show you how to collect popcorn buckets.”
She was so sweet and so earnest that I couldn’t bear to tell her that it was okay, she didn’t need to show me how to take the popcorn buckets from people as they filed out of the theater. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled at me. “You just get the buckets from them, dump the leftover popcorn in the trash, and then stack the empty buckets right here,” she explained, gesturing to the edges of the recycling bin.
It was my first time volunteering at our local movie theater, which was renovated in 2007 by none other than Michael Moore and a handful of extremely generous community members. Its flashing marquee is a landmark in my beloved hometown of Traverse City, and seeing it lit up on a snowy night sometimes makes me clutch my chest, overwhelmed with emotion. The State Theater is the centerpiece of my favorite place in the world, so I decided to start my own Christmas tradition of volunteering there.
After collecting the popcorn buckets to recycle, we did a sweep of the theater with a leaf blower. Genius! We scrambled to pick up the fallen sour patch kids and mop up the soda they were drowning in. We had barely finished cleaning when the front doors opened and we were hit with a blast of snowy air and hundreds of boot-stomping moviegoers. Everyone was smiling, people were holding hands, and the room was twinkling with happiness and Christmas lights.
I was asked to handle the soda fountain. The first couple that asked for Coke received Diet Coke by mistake. When the purchases slowed, I stepped back and reveled in the magic of the sounds of popcorn popping and people laughing. The buttery, salty smell of the theater was intoxicating. The State is run by volunteers and is open 365 days a year. Concessions are about half the price of the chain theaters and only the best of the best movies are shown. Pretty outstanding for a small town in northern Michigan, eh?
After we cleaned the entire concessions area, the woman who had taught me the secret of the cardboard buckets sat with me and we began to talk. She told me about her thirteen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren as she absentmindedly ran her hand over the red velvet of the couches. She told me about her many years of quilting, about her seventy-year old friend who wanders around the world and stays in youth hostels, and how all but three of her grandkids are married. She had started volunteering at the State because she was new to town and wanted to meet people, and after five years of volunteering it had become a weekly thing for her. It warms my heart how many people in the community volunteer at one time or another. We’re proud of our theater, and our sense of community brings us all together under the glowing marquee.
Mitten Zest 