B-I-N-G-O !!

I am not sure if you all know this or not but on February 17th, 2007 I won a game of bingo St. Joseph's Catholic Parish Bingo. I still have a copy of the check. If you would like to see it I would be more then happy to mail you a copy after you send me a pre-addressed stamped envelop.

What does that faithful night in February of 2007 have to do with anything today? Well I am glad you asked, at least in my mind you asked. Last Saturday night was the big CYO Bingo fundraiser. Every year CYO puts on this bingo fundraiser and when I got here they tried to tell me about how big it was, but I just kind of dismissed it as any other old bingo night. A group of about 10 of us went to to help run the night and man was I way off.

"Baby Bankers, chance at $100, only $1." What did I just say, again in my head you asked? This is what I called out for the better part of two hours. Baby Bankers are $1 pull tabs tickets. People buy them and if they get blue numbers they get $5, green $10 and red numbers give you a chance at winning $100. It is all matched up by serial numbers so each pack of 300 has one $100 winner. Most people just got more tickets instead of cash when they won $5 or $10. So how many packs of these did we sell? I would say maybe 20.

"Basket of booze, $3 pull tab." This meant that I was now selling chances to win a basket of alcohol. We had 4-5 big baskets each with a theme that we were selling chances to win. One basket was a whole scrap book kit (A Bunch of Scrap was its call line) with all sorts of paper and stuff. We had a card that had 100 little tabs on it and you would pay for a tab which was $3 - $5 depending on the basket. Then once they all were sold the wining tab was announced.

In addition to those two money makers, there was also a half back raffle where you split the pot 50/50. The first winner got $1246 and the second got somewhere around $800. I am not sure how it was 46 when the tickets were $5 but o well.

We also sold $10 grab bags. Each bag had at least $25 of stuff in it and a few of them as much as $50. We had 150 of them and before bingo even started they were gone.

In the same room we also had more baskets/packages where you could buy tickets and put them in which ever bowl you wanted to win, and the winner was drawn latter in the night from the bowls. There was a "High Life" package. It had a couple of 6 packs, bar towels, mugs, a baggs set, openers and a bar sign. I think there was about 10 baskets/packages in there. By in there I mean the room where the free buffet was of course. All the free beer/wine/pop was in the main bingo room at two different stations.

The big raffle was for the 42 inch flat screen tv. I now that doesn't sound like much, but remember it came with a free Wii and Wii fit.

The caller was a hilarious nun. She had all kinds of stories and jokes to tell all through out the night. Including the fact that she was not born in the convent at after the first time she had to call out O69 she refused to say it again. She kept us entertained all night long, except for intermission when everyone was served coffee cake.

When we were not selling all the chances for everthing we were collecting all the empties off the table for recyceling. We took a truck up with us and buy the end of the night filled the back with bottles. We are out of room to bring it home, but we also ran out of beer so I guess it was all ok.

Now if you are like me I am sure you are wondering how this is a fundraiser with all these prises, food, drink and such. Well it was ALL donated. There were close to 400 people there and with all the cash and prises totaled, we gave away an average of $40 a person. Everyone was a winner because at the end of the night even if you didn't anything else you still got a free CYO Bingo t-shirt.

I have no idea how much money we made, but a big THANK YOU goes out from me to all the people who donated/came to bingo.

Keep up the fight