Grosse Pointes to Offer Community-Wide Outdoor Movie

's football field will be temporarily transformed into a movie theater Saturday for a community-wide, free viewing of Despicable Me. 

The gates will open at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20. Residents are required to bring their park passes. One nonresident guest will be allowed per park pass and attendees are encouraged to bring blankets, chairs, food and drinks. Alcohol and tobacco products are not permitted on school grounds.

It is the second community-wide event coordinated and organized by the directors of the Parks and Recreation departments from each of the Grosse Pointes. The directors have worked together for years through the but it wasn't until this year that more collaboration is being done for events and services.

The directors are hopeful the movie will be a draw for families and the weather will be good, 's director Terry Solomon said. All of the directors made movie suggestions but Solomon pushed for Despicable Me because of how well attended it was at the Park's movie theater inside earlier this year.

Parks and Recreation Director Richard Huhn said he will be happy if the movie draws 1,000 people—an amount that should be easily achieved by combining the event for all of the Pointes. When the Farms offered two outdoor movie viewings a summer, depending on the movie and weather, the event drew 200 to 400, he said. 

An outdoor movie was shown in the for an overnight campout in Lake Front Park two times a summer, which drew 400 to 500 people, director Melissa Sharp said. Saturday's event replaces one of the campouts, she said.

With the ever-dwindling budgets for the cities, the Parks and Recreation Directors have stepped up their focus on sharing events or services when possible. 

In March, the directors held a community-wide Daddy-Daughter Dance, also at South High School. Historically, most of the Grosse Pointes have had an individual Daddy-Daughter Dance limited to their city. The directors thought it would make the event bigger and save money to offer it as a community-wide dance instead, Solomon said, noting the attendance topped 300 and may have even neared 400. 

Pooling their resources has been one part of the savings, Solomon said. During the dance, for example, was able to provide some of the glassware and serving equipment—meaning the other Pointes didn't have to pay to rent it. They were also conscious about using the local vendors they have traditionally used for the corsages and food, she said.

The total cost was then divided among the Pointes based on how many from each city attended, Solomon said, noting it's the only fair way since the populations vary so widely among the Pointes. 

At least three of the Pointes typically had an outdoor movie viewing each summer offered to residents, and this is one way to still offer the event at a lower expense, Huhn said. It costs about $1,400 to hire the company that puts the movie on, so there are immediate savings by offering it as a group, he said.

The Farms had already reduced the showing to once per year as a way to save, Huhn said, noting the dwindling budgets. So when the opportunity came up to do it community-wide, it was an easy decision.

Working together has been positive for the directors, too, Solomon said, because they are able to bounce ideas off each other and capitalize on each other's experience. 

"We get along so well," she said. "It really is a lot of fun."

All of the directors worked the dance, helping to hang and retrieve coats, hand out corsages and serve beverages, Solomon said. It was so well attended the group anticipates having to determine a maximum number of tickets that can be sold, she said. 

The other benefit of offering community-wide events is for the residents and kids, Solomon and Huhn said. The kids, who often know each other through school, cannot always attend community events together in the Pointes since there are technically five cities, Solomon said, so this is a good event for the kids to be able to socialize at an event despite living in different Pointes.

The directors are hopeful to do more community-wide projects, Solomon said, noting they meet on a regular basis. Right now the focus is the movie and getting all of the last-minute details worked out but she expects more ideas will be shared in future meetings.

In addition to the two community-wide events, there have been smaller collaborations in an effort to save money. Earlier this year Grosse Pointe Woods and Grosse Pointe Park rented a petting zoo for their respective on the same day—sharing the expense with the requirement that the zoo would bet set up at one first and then moved to the other later in the day.