Thursday, September 3, 2020
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Local siblings team up to support wounded warriors Twelve-year-old Kara Ahern, a Middle School of Plainville seventh grader and champion swimmer, knew as far back as a year ago that she wanted to play a bigger role in helping her younger brother Michael make his Scoops for Troops veterans charity initiative a huge success.
Theaters begin to reopen as studios release blockbusters By Devin Leith-Yessian Record-Journal staff
Helped along by a few recent blockbuster releases, movie theaters are beginning to open their auditoriums and allow customers indoors. “We’ve been so lonely, everyone that works in a movie theater company … we’re people people, we love serving people,” said Bria Naylor, marketing manager for Picture Show Entertainment, a theater in Berlin.
Michael had big dreams for the project, and the siblings planned to team together to make 2020 an even more successful fundraising year than the charity’s inaugural campaign in 2019. Then came COVID-19.
Without the possibility of a big box office weekend, as theaters have been shuttered amid the Coronavirus pandemic, studios have held off on releasing blockbusters that are typically shown throughout the summer.
Despite obstacles presented by the pandemic, which has created major fundraising challenges for charities large and small, Kara, Michael and Scoops for Troops are persevering, with Kara dipping her toes – literally – into the Scoops for Troops fundraising waters for the very first time.
Plainville siblings Kara and Michael Ahern are doing their part for military veterans.
Kara was joined by several of her Plainville Middle School teammates and a limited group of others on Aug. 22 at the very first Scoops for Troops Swim-A-
Thon at Shuttle Meadow Country Club in Kensington. It was the charity project’s first organized fundraising event of the year.
“Fundraising this year has admittedly been difficult, but Kara and Michael are as See Warriors, A11
As a few of those movies have been released in recent weeks, namely Unhinged and New Mutants, theaters have felt confident that the demand is there for them to begin powering up their projectors.
Both AMC Theaters in Plainville and Southington are open and have various showtimes with a 40 percent theater capacity restriction and a mask mandate. Cinemark movie theater in North Haven also currently has showtimes with required masks and other COVID restrictions in place. Though theaters have been permitted to open in Connecticut since midJune, the Picture Show in Berlin waited until Aug. 21 to open. “I think the movie theater industry as a whole has been waiting, holding their breath to see what Hollywood is doing,” Naylor said. Major releases were sometimes delayed just days ahead of their first showings, sending theaters back to the drawing board on their own reopenings. With more major releases on the horizon — particularly Tenet, set to premiere on Sept. 3 and Wonder See Theaters, A12 R233461
Volume 19, Number 30