I Want YOU To Help Open The Iowa Theater! (Yes!)

Friends! Readers! Countrywomen and several countrymen! I blow a great trumpet! My call to thee riseth upon the winds that sweep across the fruited plain and swoopeth down to alight on thine ears! Hear ye, hear ye: The Iowa Theater is going to open at the end of this month!

IT’S HAPPENING!

If you didn’t know, my sister Rebecca and my mother Marianne — with the help of the community of Winterset and so many people in Iowa, e.g., business leaders, generally great Midwesterners — are renovating, rehabbing, and restoring The Iowa, the wonderful little theater-on-the-square in the town where I grew up. (Aye, as a wee bairn, how I loved to see the grrrreat films of yesteryear and — sorry. I’ll stop.)

The renovation project/non-profit startup has been a massive undertaking. It has taken much, much money so far and great quantities of elbow grease. In fact, as I gear up to ask something of you, I would like you to picture my poor, poor little sister and my poor, poor mother, both of them working so hard for the past year that they may have no elbow grease left! Oh, the humanity! Dry, dry elbows, all for the good of their community and movie-theater popcorn and the love of small town U.S.A.!

Will you donate a little bit of money? Just a little. Or, hey, a lot! I would not presume to tell you how much money to donate to such a wildly wonderful project. I mean, I don’t have to tell you. You’ll see when you watch the video that The Iowa project is really special. The Kickstarter campaign my sister speaks about is specifically to help restore the marquee, but believe me: There’s a lot more left to do and you shouldn’t hesitate to donate, even if the goal is reached for that portion of this thing.

Here’s who should donate:

people who put Junior Mints (or M&M’s, Raisinets, or Reese’s Pieces) directly into their popcorn when they go to the movies
people who love John Wayne
people who love an American town square
people who smile at babies
babies who smile at people
people who were thinking about buying something online within the past hour that they did not need (*do this instead!)
people who scream when the movie is scary
people who cry when the movie is sad
people who cry when the movie is beautiful
people with kids (*hello, date nite!)
people without kids (*hello, just go see a movie!)
people who like it when something good happens in the world (*because there’s so much other stuff that does not feel like this)

and

high school kids (*because the balcony has been restored, you guys, and that means you just got a prime freakin’ make out spot, okay, so you’d better fork over whatever cash you made delivering pizzas last week because you’re welcome.)

Here’s the link to the campaign. If the goal is reached by the time you get there, please donate! That’s not the end of the fundraising, trust me. The money is needed and will be used to make The Iowa great. You’ll have a hand in it, you really will.

Thank you.