By: Ellie Hawkins

Suffolk University is wonderful at providing a variety of events for its students. Besides the events, they also provide students with the opportunities to join different clubs that plan these events, one of these clubs is program council.

One of the events that program council has once-a-month is Meal N’ Reel. “Meal N’ Reel is a chance to have a fun night and catch a movie that one might not have seen in theaters,” says the program council president, Marissa Musumeci.

Musumeci went on to explain that program council was established in 1981 and they have been having this event for six or seven years. The group goes through a company called Swank Motion Pictures to get its movies. This company has a variety of movies; some that are not on DVD and other movies that are on DVD. Program Council tries to get movies that have not been out on DVD yet.

The group does this because it hopes to give students a chance to spend time with their friends, meet new friends, and enjoy a movie they might have missed when it was in theaters.

The food for each screening is based off of the movie  choosen. For example, this month’s movie was Despicable Me 2. The minions’ favorite food is ice cream, so Program Council decided that ice cream and popcorn was the appropriate meal to pair with the movie

This month’s movie was held on Tuesday Oct. 9 and was sponsored by Program Council and cosponsored by OCHO.

There was mingling and food being consumed, then Program Council and OCHO gave some announcements before the movie started.

There was laughter and everyone seemed to be enjoying the movie. Usually, there are no issues with the movie, but this DVD had a few glitches on it and skipped a few parts. The students gave out some verbal protests, but the movie always started back up again.

After the movie finished, the sponsors gave a few last reminders then the end of the movie raffle.

Program Council called OCHO up to start the raffle, OCHO was in charge of providing prizes for the event. No one came up and OCHO had failed to follow through with its task of providing prizes. The students, about 65 who attended, seemed disappointed by this and then left because of the event coming to an abrupt end.

Gail Coogan and Mary-Kate Lang, who are both freshman, stated how they think the other students who attended were considerate and respectful during the movie. They both went on to express how much they loved the free food and how they love movies in general.

Jonathan Stone a junior, majoring in public relations and the public relations chair in program council said, “The movies are all wonderful and I really hope they show Iron Man 3 sometime.” When asked about the day and time of the event he expressed how it is a good time, but “that program council needs to switch up the days so more students have a chance to attend if they have Tuesday night classes or whatnot.” Stone said that overall, “you meet a lot of people and we get a different crowd each time.”

The next Meal N’ Reel will be sponsored by program council and cosponsored with another Suffolk  University organization. The movie and date are undecided at this time.