Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
One of the longest running community activities in Yelm, Movies in the Park, has reached new heights during the summer of 2025.
Prior to the Yelm Lions Club’s showing of “Moana 2” on Saturday, Aug. 2, club president Christina Garcia and vice presidents Griselda Arias and Melissa Hoffman said the 2025 Movies in the Park series has been the organization’s “best season yet.”
“This has been my favorite season so far, hands down. I think it’s gone top notch,” Garcia said. “It’s been slowly growing, but this year has been the most fun. We got the library involved this year. They’ve been bringing great games, and our scoutmaster has always helped with games before the movies. This year, even moreso. We’ve got the scouts out there doing games. We’ve got the library out there doing games. We’ve got Outpost Church out there doing games and cotton candy. We’ve had a nice combination of different things going on.”
The final rendition of Movies in the Park for 2025 will be on Saturday, Aug. 23, when “Wicked” is played on the big screen. The movie will begin at 8:25 p.m., but activities will begin at the park around 5 p.m.
Arias, who officially worked her first Movies in the Park as a Yelm Lions Club member this summer, described the series as “the big fundraiser” for the local organization. In an effort to grow the community’s involvement in the bi-weekly events, Arias said the Lions Club started to offer fun activities for attendees prior to the movie’s showing — such as karaoke night.
“We had so many kids bravely come up and pick a song and sing karaoke using our sound system. It was amazing. At first, we weren’t sure if anyone wanted to do it but so many kids signed up for it,” Arias said.
“This is our big fundraiser for the Lions Club, so we’d like to see the event keep growing and we’d love to see more people come. We’ve been doing this for a very long time, and the equipment is pretty old. We were able to upgrade some things due to the amount of sponsors we got this year, which was great. The equipment is over 10 years old and things can break. We want to keep maintaining our equipment properly so we can keep hosting this.”
Arias, Garcia and Hoffman also wanted to highlight Boy Scouts Troop 268, which has volunteered at Movies in the Park since 2019. Without their cooperation, the three Yelm Lions Club members said the yearly events could not happen.
“We also want to give a huge thank you to the scouts who do so much for us and are here every movie. They help us wheel out all of the equipment, set it up and make sure it’s running properly. They stay here until midnight to help pack everything up and put it away,” Arias said. “We could not pull this off without them.”
Jeff Kasnick, Troop 268 scoutmaster, said the Boy Scouts branch has always been a “big supporter” of the yearly Movies in the Park series. He said in the troop’s six years of involvement, their role has also evolved.
“It started with just being a helpful hand with cleanup after the movie. We stay late and tear everything down and help with cleanup. We also started getting more involved by hosting field games and activities for the kids. We get here around 4 or 5 o’clock and set up different field games,” Kasnick said. “We really do enjoy being out here.”
Anyone within the community interested in becoming involved in Yelm Lions Club can contact the organization through its self-titled Facebook page or by reaching out to Garcia at 360-480-9126.
