FELLSMERE — A little more than a year ago, Wanda Szeman – Miss Wanda to most who know her – was on a mission. She wanted to bring something special to her city, something that would give families a chance to spend some quality time together and not have to worry about their wallet.
Thinking back on her own childhood in Vero Beach, living across the street from Pocahontas Park, Miss Wanda remembered watching movies projected on a large sheet.
“Growing up, I was very lucky,” she says of having the opportunity to watch movies in the park – an idea was born.
“I honestly didn’t think Wanda knew what she was getting into,” Gustavo Vergara says, recalling the day she called him at Brevard County Recreation to inquire about bringing its inflatable movie screen to Fellsmere.
Each Movie at the Park event costs between $500 and $575 – which covers the movie screen and the rights to screen the film in front of an audience.
“It’s expensive to do,” Vergara says, adding that Miss Wanda was not deterred by the price.
Instead, she has gone to various organizations and businesses seeking donations to keep the movies going.
The next one is scheduled for 6 p.m. Jan. 25 at Little League Park and will be a screening of Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted. The park is located at the corner of County Road 512 and Broadway.
Miss Wanda’s favorite screening to date is Marmaduke.
“I could listen to the children laughing” the whole time, she says. “It was fun.”
The 73-year-old is quick to smile and even quicker to laugh. Sitting at a corner table at Marsh Landing, Miss Wanda seemingly holds court.
No fewer than six people stop on their way to their tables to give Miss Wanda a hug and share a brief life update.
Even the staff at the restaurant makes a quick stop to see Miss Wanda to wish her a happy holiday season.
In between visitors to her table, Miss Wanda recalls what it’s been like trying to keep the movies going in Fellsmere.
One woman, with daughter in tow, delivered a basket of baked goods to Miss Wanda in the hope of persuading her to keep up the events. Another person walked up to Miss Wanda during one of the screening and gave her a $20 bill to go toward the next one.
The last screening, Arthur Christmas, in December was sponsored by the Frog Leg Festival, the Lions Club, Marsh Landing, Fellsmere Feed and Farm Supply, the Indian River Airboat Association, and the Sebastian River Area Chamber of Commerce.
And, now that the seasonal residents are back, Miss Wanda is hoping to make the movies a monthly activity – something that didn’t happen over the sweltering summer months.
Because the Movies in the Park are meant for families with children of all ages, there won’t be any screenings of movies rated PG-13 or R.
“I’m sorry, I’m a prude,” Miss Wanda says, not looking the slightest bit sorry. She says she doesn’t want to show movies with cursing or sex.
“I don’t approve that for anyone, at any age,” she says.
Miss Wanda, for all she is involved with in Fellsmere, doesn’t – technically – call Fellsmere home.
She lives just outside the city’s limits, which keeps her from being a member of the various advisory boards and committees she might otherwise be a member of.
“Since I’m retired, I’m busier than ever,” she quips.
Along with the movies, Miss Wanda is involved with the Airboat Association and the Lions Club, just to name a couple. In the past, she’s dressed as the frog mascot for the Frog Leg Festival.// “I tell people Fellsmere is just outside the gates of Heaven,” Miss Wanda says.
She’s lived in Fellsmere since 1985, moving back to the area from Indiana, where her husband, Harry Szeman, had found work. They’ve been married 56 years.
Miss Wanda was born and raised in Vero Beach and her family had a fish farm – Snyder’s Tropical Fish. They had a second, smaller farm in Fellsmere before they retired in 2005.
“Wanda’s just a good person,” says Fellsmere Councilman Joel Tyson, who met her through the homeowners association.
Though he doesn’t go to the movies anymore, Tyson partnered with Miss Wanda to open a joint account at Oculina Bank specifically to handle funds for the Movies in the Park.
Miss Wanda is an anomaly to Brevard County Recreation’s Gustavo Vergara.
In his three years of running the Movies in the Park, Miss Wanda is the first individual to bring the event to her own town – not waiting for government leaders or others to initiate.
“It’s really close to our heart,” Vergara says of bringing the movies to Fellsmere – more so than bringing them to Sebastian, which is done at the request of the city’s leaders, and more so than bringing them to Pointe West in Vero Beach, at the request of the developer.
“It’s the neatest thing ever,” he says of how one person – out of the “goodness of her heart” – can put the event on.
For her part, Miss Wanda shrugs off the praise. “It’s just something I do,” she says.
Anyone interested in donating to Fellsmere’s Movies in the Park can call Miss Wanda at (772) 571-1657. To keep tabs on the event, check out Brevard County Recreation’s facebook page – www.facebook.com/brevardmoviesinthepark.
In the event of inclement weather, the Fellsmere movie at the park will be relocated to the auditorium in the Old Fellsmere School next door to the Little League Park.
