BY SARA KEDDY
Kings County Register
Before the very first “bingo” is called, players should know the game in front of them is a serious effort by Valley Lions to support 17 clubs’ community work, from Windsor to Digby. “All of us on one page is almost impossible to get, but we went around to every club and sold them on the benefits,” says Coldbrook King Lion Kirk Longmire. “It may be crazy, but we looked at it and said, ‘Yes, we can do it’. “It may be crazy!”
Valley Lions Radio Bingo plays its first cards March 1, broadcasting on AVR stations between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., and every Monday evening afterward. The Coldbrook club took the lead organizing the program - filing all the provincial gaming paperwork, ordering cards and organizing responsibilities for fellow club. “The million dollar question is, how many people will play this?” Longmire says. “Based on our population in the Valley, we should be into several thousand cards a week.”
Coldbrook Lions will distribute weekly cards - five in a bundle for $6, plus the cookie jar game - to Lions in the 17 communities. Those Lions will get the cards out to neighbourhood drop-offs - stores, businesses and even make them available at their own weekly functions; and pick up unsold cards and money as they go to turn back in to the Coldbrook club.
Players will take their cards home, listen to AVR for the weekly numbers and call a 1-800 to report a bingo. A rules card is stapled to the front of each book of cards. Games are worth $125 to the winner, with a minimum prize of $25 - no matter how many winners.
But the real money should start adding up in the cookie jar, Longmire says. “If you have 150 people in a hall playing, the cookie jar goes up by $150 each week. If we’re serving thousands with the radio games - that’s the attraction!”
While many of the 17 clubs run their own hall bingo, others don’t. Longmire says this is an opportunity for all clubs to raise funds to put back into their community. “It’s a whole new group of people who don’t go to halls - seniors in an apartment building’s lounge, groups around a kitchen table, shut-ins, campgrounds at a rec hall.... “It could potentially make nothing - or it could be a huge amount. Once we start, though, there’s no stopping us!”
