Sherwood Arkansas charitable bingo has done exceptionally well according Bob Douglas of the Sherwood Moose Lodge 942. Douglas said, “We are proud of the fact that we have donated $68,000 to charities. That’s what charitable bingo is all about.”

Most recently, there have been donations to $5,000 to the North Hills Child Services Development Center in Sherwood and $1,000 to the Police Department’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program.

The North Hills Services Center provides services to the developmentally disabled. Douglas said that the bingo money donated was going to rebuild the playground.

“We are anticipating more going to North Hills for the playground ... somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000,” Douglas said.

Bingo nights are Tuesday and Thursday and are averaging a comfortable 160 players a night. “We have a capacity of 210, but we don’t want to go past 210,” Douglas said. “We want to be comfortable.” This is up from November’s and December’s averages.

Donations are sent out after expenses’ which include security, bingo cards, overhead and of course taxes which at $23,730 is the biggest one. Douglas said,

“I am not complaining about the taxes, but I think this is something we are going to take up during the next session of the state Legislature next January,” Douglas said. “That could be more money we could be donating to charity.”


- 2008-01-31