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By Cameron Small
Hometown Weekly Intern
“What do you call Chewbacca when he gets bits of chocolate in his fur?” asked one child.
“What’s Beethoven’s favorite food?” asked another.
“Why don’t seagulls fly over the bay?” questioned a third.
“Why did the dinosaur cross the road?”
These are just a few of the jokes told by the kindergarten and first grade students who participated in the Medfield Coalition for Public Education’s Silly Kids Stand Up fundraiser event last Sunday at the Pfaff Center. The money raised through the cost of admission, the raffle, and the bake sale goes to the MCPE for grants for all five Medfield public schools for the upcoming school year.
Amy Casey came up with the idea for the event after remembering her own childhood, when a great-uncle of hers would pay her and her cousins a dollar for every joke they told him. The dollar incentive helped Casey and her cousins create a supportive environment for each other as they practiced their jokes.
Chris Casey acted as emcee for the event, calling the jokesters up one at a time to perform, and helping the kids who forgot their joke remember.
As one parent of a jokester mentioned after the event, “It’s great for the kids to have this supportive environment. You don’t often have a room full of people cheering you on, except for graduation.”
All the students who told jokes received a participation medal. At the end of the event, kids who hadn’t signed up but still wanted to tell a joke were able to share too.
Some kids wore costumes. Others wore hats. Some were just in everyday t-shirts and shorts. But all of them had big smiles on their faces after they told their joke or two, and the entire audience started cheering, whistling, and applauding them.
So what do you call Chewbacca when he gets bits of chocolate in his fur? “A chocolate chip Wookiee!”
Beethoven’s favorite food? “Ba-na-na-nas!”
Seagulls can’t fly over the bay “Because then they would be bagels!”
And the dinosaur crossed the road “Because the chicken joke hadn’t been invented yet!”
