Story By John Mann
The competition was hot at the Guntersville Rec Center on Sunset Drive on Saturday night as the Guntersville Lion’s Club held their third annual BBQ and Bingo fundraiser.
“This is our third annual bingo ‘Fall Festival’ and we just keep getting better every year,” Bingo Event Chair Renie Bright said. “We set up the ability to purchase tickets on our website and sold a lot of tickets prior to the event, even if people realized that the Alabama vs Tennessee football game conflicted with our event. We learned a valuable lesson not to compete with Alabama or Auburn football.”
Tickets for the bingo, which were fifteen dollars, bought each patron a BBQ dinner courtesy of Fast Fixin Foods and Piggly Wiggly, with cookies made by Caring Heart Outreach, and two bingo boards to play on. Once the games got started people could play for a variety of gift baskets donated by local businesses. In total sixty-one businesses donated prizes and money to the event.
In order to keep things fresh the bingo style was swapped up after each game, going from standard bingo to diamonds, around the free space, crazy L and finally blackout, where every square on a card has to be filled in. The Guntersville Lions Club created the event based on a tradition of holding bingo games in the town square as a way of bringing the community together.
“It became a fond memory that built a sense of community for so many,” Bright said. “As we were brainstorming fundraising ideas Lion Sharon Price shared a few childhood memories of bingo and the idea was reborn.”
The event is reported to have raised over five thousand dollars for the club, which will go toward funding their various service projects in the community. The Lion’s Club casts a wide net in their service, providing things like support for childhood cancer, diabetes, disaster relief, food drives and pantries, vision support for eye exams and corrective lenses as well as sponsoring youth groups like boys and girls scout troops.
The club has been a longtime fixture in Guntersville, being founded all the way back in August of 1930, and currently has a roster of twenty-six members. The Guntersville club is just one of many chapters around the world, with Lions Club International boasting over one million members across nearly fifty thousand clubs.
“We are learning and trying new ways to create a positive and consistent public image for the club and an atmosphere of family fun,” Bright said. “We want everyone to leave feeling excited for the next event. Whether you have one hour or one day to spare to help make a difference – we’d love to hear from you.”
Membership in the Guntersville Lion’s Club is $100 annually or ten dollars a month. The group meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 6 pm in the Church of the Epiphany on Sunset Drive. They can be found at guntersvillelionsclub.org or by emailing guntersvillelionsclub@gmail.com.
