A good deed
n A community comes together
Hi Guy,
I work at a large Bingo warehouse in Southern California and I wanted to share a story from work that I think really shows the kind of community that exists among so many of us involved in Bingo.
Recently, I answered a phone call from a woman who knew nothing about Bingo but wanted to do something extra for her mother’s funeral that she knew would mean a lot to her.
Her mom was a “Bingo fanatic” and had recently passed away. What this lady had in mind was a display with a Bingo bag, some dabbers, tickets and things like that. You could hear even in her voice that doing something like this was important to her. Here’s the catch, though: We are a major warehouse and have minimum orders that need to be filled, and the nearest Bingo store that does smaller orders was too far away. The funeral was in ONE HOUR and she didn’t have time to shop around.
I spoke with our staff to see what could be done. Our warehouse manager gave the OK for a special order and our general warehouse worker volunteered to make a delivery right away if she could pay for the immediate delivery.
After we got her phone number and the address of the mortuary, we ran through the warehouse gathering a Bingo bag, loose dabbers, a Bingo doll and other items we could find. Within 10 minutes, the Bingo material was on the way. The woman told our warehouse guy that this made her day.
On a day that was so hard, everyone managed to pull together something so quickly to help this woman smile, and her mom was no doubt smiling down from Bingo heaven not just at the display but the love of her daughter who found a way—despite everything that was going on with the funeral plans—to include something that had been such a part of her life. —EM, via email
Hi EM,
This is a GREAT story! And I have to say right up front that I really appreciate that you chose to send it to me and not to Aunt Bingo! You made MY day!
I enjoyed reading your story not just because it’s unusual and Bingo centric, but because it demonstrates that customer service and going that extra mile to meet a need is alive and well in the USA.
You could so easily have apologized to the woman and explained that you were strictly a wholesaler and weren’t equipped to help her…but you didn’t. Your goal from the moment you picked up the phone and heard this woman’s story was to help her make her mother’s final services special. And you absolutely, positively, without question did just that.
Congratulations to you on a job, and a good deed, well done. —Guy
Hi Guy,
I see that they call smaller Bingos “Charity Bingos.” What does that mean, exactly? The money players spend is donated to charities? Do you know what these charities are and how they are picked? —Jerome, via email
Hi Jerome,
Put simply, charity Bingos operate in order to generate funds for charitable work. Some charities have their own licenses and offer their own games. Others are part of a “pool” of charities that may receive a portion of Bingo winnings from a particular organization. For example, a Knights of Columbus Bingo will direct some of the funds to KofC activities and the rest is shared among other not-for-profits the Knights have chosen to help.
I do not know the specific process an organization goes through to select the charities it will support, but I assume there is some kind of selection committee that makes that decision. —Guy
Hey guys! (And gals!) Write to: Guy’s Turn c/o The Bingo Bugle, P.O. Box 527, Vashon, Washington 98070, or e-mail Guy directly at Tonder22@aol.com. Be sure to include your name and address (you may request that your name not be published), as typically Guy will not include anonymous letters in his columns.
Author: Guy Williams
Main
The Bingo Bugle is a monthly tabloid newspaper designed, written and published for Bingo players. It is
produced and printed in over 70 markets throughout the U. S. and Canada with a circulation of 900,000
copies each month.
Bingo Bugle is a registered trademark of Frontier Publications Inc.
SPONSORS
