With its main hall set up, the Elks Lodge holds its regular bingo games to help fundraise for charity groups and other organizations across Santa Clarita.
Chapter 2379 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks holds its charitable bingo games Thursdays at 6 p.m. with $2 meals, and Sundays beginning with breakfast and early bird bingo games starting at 12:30 p.m., followed by regular games at 3 p.m.
“Every dime we make goes to our charity,” said Jo Alpern, chair of the Bingo Committee.
The proceeds have helped the Child and Family Center, the VA Hospital in Los Angeles, provided students with scholarships, and even dictionaries for local third-graders, according to Tina Jackson, secretary of the Elk Lodge, listing a few of the event’s beneficiaries. Other groups who have benefited from the Elks Lodge’s fundraising include Habitat for Humanity and Boy Scout Troop 2379.
In gathering enough money, a minimum of 46 to 50 guests are needed to participate. Due to scheduling and mobility of some bingo players, Alpern said there could be around 60 guests, as there were this past Thursday, or the 37 who played bingo last Sunday.
“This bingo event is our biggest charity fundraiser,” Jackson said. “We do pay out $100 a game, except when we have less than 46 people, because then we’re going under too much, and it got to where we were going under so much we would consider closing down.”
Jackson also said around there are at least 46 bingo players “90 percent of the time.”
Players Carol Anderson and Joyce Ulibarri have come regularly to the bingo games, with Anderson starting just last year while Ulibarri has played at the Elks Lodge for five years.
Ulibarri said they were pros, as Anderson referred to her as her “sidekick.”
“Everybody’s friendly, we get along, we have fun,” Anderson said. “We have some people that win all the time and others don’t.”
For more information, go to the Elks Lodge’s website.
