Several local business have reached out to the Camp Perry Varner Educational Treatment Facility to offer them free services as award incentives to those children in the facility. For all intensive purposes, Camp Perry Varner acts as a boot camp treatment center for youth that have found themselves in trouble in some way or another.

Dr. David and Sharon Jackson, who own and operate the Selma Walton Theater, allow those in the facility to come and enjoy one movie each month free of cost, but their long-term plans are to offer them an educational experience and motivation to start their own businesses.

Sharon Jackson said the offering of free movies to the youth is just one small part of their larger ministry outreach they try to do through the Selma Walton.

Jackson said once she toured the Perry Varner facility, she knew and her husband knew they needed to find a way to pitch into teaching the students life lessons by giving them theater access on the third Saturday of each month, where they watch premier and opening movies.

“This is a way to offer [the youth] a reward and an incentive for their good behavior,” Perry Varner Director Marcus Hannah said Tuesday after he and other facility workers delivered a plaque to the Selma Walton, thanking them for the free access to the movies. “The kids really enjoy getting out and getting so see a movie as a reward for their good behavior. This is just a way for us to teach them about what rewards come with hard work.”

Other local businesses, like the Dominoes on Highland Avenue, have arranged to deliver free pizzas for the same good behavior incentive.

Jackson said the incentive portion of their free services are just part of what they are giving to Camp Perry Varner. Her long-term goal is to teach the youth in the facility about business management and other life skills. Movies, she explained, are a low-cost way to take the youth all over the world and learn new things.

“What we hope to do as time goes on is be able to give them more than just coming to the movies,” Jackson said,” We want to teach these kids, how do you run a business, how do you start a business.”