By Aiden Lorenzo
Photo credits – Aiden Lorenzo
For the past couple summers, the Town of Islip has been organizing free outdoor movie nights for kids and families to hang out and watch a film under the stars. This week was no different as many families gathered at Ronkonkoma Beach Monday night to watch a recent film called Migration.
Produced by Illumination Entertainment (the same people behind the Despicable Me/Minions franchise), the film follows a family of ducks as they migrate from New England to Jamaica for the winter. While it’s a rather bland, inoffensive film for the kids, it more than makes up for it with great animation, a solid score by John Powell, strong voice acting from its cast, and a nice blend of humor, heart, and adventure for the whole family.
“Every time they do this, I get to learn more about the Town of Islip and how much effort they put into this.”, says Cecilia and Robert of Brentwood.
As a resident of the Town of Islip myself, I appreciate that they actually put the time and effort into organizing an event like this when families could just watch this at home on Netflix. I appreciate even more the fact that the kids actually sat and watched the movie under the stars instead of running around or just sitting on a phone or tablet. Of course, it helped that not only it was in a park but also that there was an ice cream truck that they could walk up to for some sweet refreshments.
“I think it’s a wonderful way to get the community together!” says Jai Dichiara of Youth Enrichment Services (YES). Aside from that, there were also non-perishable food donations being accepted at this event as a way for people to give back to the community. That is something that I found to be rather admirable and it shows how some people are willing to give back while they are enjoying themselves at an event like this. Additionally, these free outdoor movie nights are sponsored by West Islip’s Good Samaritan Hospital, which is a great way for them to also give back to the community.
Overall, if you have kids and don’t have a lot going on this summer, I definitely recommend attending these free movie nights every Monday. The next ones will be a screening of Muppet Treasure Island on Saturday July 20 at Atlantique Beach on Fire Island, and a screening of Bee Movie on Monday July 22 in East Islip. And for all the adults that either don’t have kids or interest in watching movies under the stars, the Town of Islip also provides concerts in the park every Wednesday night until August 21, with the most upcoming show being a performance by “The Warped Tour Band” on Wednesday July 17 in Bayshore.
