Search Results for: Bingo Prizes

Maria and I have been calling the Friday night Bingo games at the Mansion for almost two years now; tonight, we were greeted by a rousing welcome, cheers, and applause for the first time.

These games mean a lot to the residents and me, as well.

Every time I see them, they ask me if we’re going to show up. When I have the money, I go and buy some inexpensive prizes – stuffed animals, jewelry, books, puzzles, reading lights.

The Mansion also has a prize cart, where small gifts like playing cards or beads or little presents are stored.

It’s almost a stereotype, Bingo and the elderly, I think of Bingo as the National Sport of Assisted Care. When Maria is calling (we take turns), I like to watch the residents and try to figure out why Bingo means so much to them.

Some of it I can see. Bingo is a socializing game, one of the few times in a week where the residents gather together for play that not structured or supervised. Sometimes they sit with their friends, sometimes they mix. I sense the residents are often lonely, even in a crowd of people. They want and need to socialize with one another at times.

Bingo is a safe and accessible way to do that.

I noticed the residents take care of one another, helping each other to spot numbers that are called, even reading out the numbers for others when they have a Bingo.

In the context of assisted care, Bingo is stimulating. It is said to increase mental flexibility, alertness, and concentration. At a time of life characterized by loss, there some chances to win.

It’s an inclusive game; everyone is invited, I see all kinds of people there I typically rarely see, people who stay in their rooms or read off in a corner by themselves, people with sharp memories and people with little mind.

It is part of human nature to be competitive, and there is mostly a healthy competition, something rare for the elderly. There is also the element of luck and suspense. Some of the people win every time; some win once or twice in months. I see that the desire to win is intense.

Then there are the prizes. There is a winner in every game. People of all ages like prizes, they like to win and have something to show for it.

I handed out a sackful of classy old jewelry someone sent me for the residents; they loved putting the bracelets on their wrists and the pins on their blouses.

The shrinks say Bingo promotes socialization, gets people together and thinking and laughing and out of their rooms. It is believed to increase mental flexibility and alertness and also exercise hand-eye coordination.

I sense there is a lot of healing the Bingo games, and also a lot of laughter. I hear a lot of jokes and kidding; I see them making connections with one another.

People seem genuinely happy when somebody wins a game; there is loud and enthusiastic applause. People help people with hearing or sight problems; they watch their cards and let them know when they have a number that has been called.

Sometimes, the desire to win is too much. There has been some cheating, and we deal with those privately after the game is over. I only had to ask one resident to leave, he was memorizing the called numbers and pretending to have them.

I don’t look the other way about cheating, that would be patronizing and demoralizing to the other players.

At the end of the Bingo game, everyone comes up to thank Maria and me; they gather around to study our prizes or those in the prize cart.

They line up  me to tell me what they need: Georgianna and Nancy need jeans, Peggie needs a winter jacket, somebody else needs a sweater, everybody needs warm socks,  Sylvie wants to know if I read her last letter and what to make of it.

Somehow, Sylvie knows that Fate was injured; she asks me to give Fate her live. Sylvie doesn’t like to touch dogs because they remind her of the dog who disappeared during her life in Austria after World War II.

But she loves dogs. “Please give her my love,” she said, “I feel that will matter to her.” So we did.

(I just bought some “Bishop Maginn Mural Mob” hats for the BM mural makers. If you wish to support my work at the Mansion and with refugee children, you can contribute via Paypal, [email protected] or by check, Jon Katz, Mansion/Refugee Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.)

I’m entering my second year as a Bingo caller, and almost nothing else has taught me as much about the elderly.

It’s almost a cliche to walk into an assisted care facility and see the residents playing Bingo. Bingo is played all over the country, American Legion and church basements, in nursing homes and assisted care.

The first thing I learned about Bingo and the elderly is that it is good for them.

It exercises the brain, breaks up the monotony, is inherently social,  engages the brain in better hand-eye co-ordination, is competitive and thus stimulating, and also has an enduring tradition of reward: money in some cases, prizes in others.

The residents yell at the caller – me – and chide me when their cards are full. They watch out for one another, pointing it out when they miss a call to their favor, urging one another to hang one, lucky is coming just around the corner.

One of my Bingo regulars is Brother Peter, a monk for more than 50 years who lived in a nearby monastery. He is one of the most regular game players and never accepts a prize, always turning it over to someone else.

He is serious about the game, rarely chats with the other players and doesn’t hang around to socialize and trade prizes.

I asked him once why he played, and he said he learned in his monastery – he was alone for much of the day –  that it was very important to socialize several times a day – at meals especially – or you can lose the knack of talking to other people.

I think for him Bingo is a kind of social exercise, keeping his hand in knowing how to talk to people.

I hadn’t thought about it before, but an assisted care facility does have much in common with a monastery, at least in some ways.

Bingo is both an individual game and a social one. Some of the residents deliberately sit at tables by themselves, they don’t want to talk. Some pair up and help each other, when somebody wins, everyone else in the room applauds.

I know from my gambling days that competitions add some excitement, adrenaline flows a bit. Maria and I were both surprised by the amount of cheating that sometimes goes on in cames.

Maria and I are both good Bingo callers now, we shout out the numbers clearly, we kid one another and the residents, sometimes we even sing the number to  change the place. The aides tell me we have tripled attendance. It might just be the prizes.

One resident was winning six or seven times in a game, the odds were long against that week after week, we concluded he was cheating, but it took us weeks to figure out how: he was remembering the numbers we called out and pretending that he had them on his board.

Since then, there have been several instances of cheating. We caught all of them, and all of them still play.

We dealt with this first round of cheating by limiting his wins to two. After that, we said, the cheater would have;’ had to stop playing. He stopped cheating and wins every now and then. One woman gives me the evil eye if I don’t call her numbers and another joke that I will have to walk home if he loses.

They are joking (he was) but they really do want to win. Victories in their lives are few and far between, they gloat and beam when they get one.

The prizes come in a prize cart stuffed with baubles and cards and costume jewelry from the dollar store. If I have any money, I’ll stop at the bead store and the book store and bring some classier prizes. The residents will always ask for stuffed animals or gaudy costume jewelry.

Elderly people are notorious gamblers. When I worked on a documentary about gambling in Atlantic City with Bill Moyers, we both were astonished to see how many older women poured into the casinos every week with their social security checks in their bags. They waited in long lines to cash them in for poker chips.

There is one other thing about Bingo that is appealing to the elderly. You can play it just as easily in a wheelchair or with a walker by your side. Bingo may be the world’s most inclusive sport, anybody who can get there can scan his or her card and win.