Kim Borkowski
Equinox Staff
The Up ‘til Dawn chapter here at Keene State College hosted a bingo night last Wednesday in an effort to continue the awareness of the group across campus.
On Feb. 22, the Night Owl Cafe filled with students eager to play bingo as the Up ‘til Dawn executive board thanked everyone for their support.
Melanie Sachs, executive board member and recruitment chair, said the group came up with the idea of having a bingo night to remind students of it’s existence and to get students interested in applying to be on the Executive board.
Sachs explained Up ‘til Dawn hosts an event every year in the fall to raise money for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The recruitment chair said the hospital specifically takes care of children with cancer and it costs $1.7 million each day to just operate the hospital.
The executive board announced at bingo night the KSC Up ‘til Dawn raised the second highest amount of money out of 13 other schools in the region – beating out schools that have done it for 10 years.
Sachs said Up ‘til Dawn has only been on the Keene State campus for two years.
“Our event was really successful in November – we raised $32,048. It’s a really rewarding experience to see people come together, but we didn’t want people on campus to forget about us,” Sachs explained.
Sachs said she was happy with the turnout of bingo night, and mentioned the event was last minute.
“We know what to do next time, though, because we do want to do at least one more event before the school year is over,” Sachs added.
Up ‘til Dawn gave away small bags of assorted candy as prizes for bingo, and one iTunes gift card as the big prize.
As each student shouted, “Bingo!”, the rest of the group automatically replied with an exhale of disappointment and yelling, “No!” in unison.
A KSC sophomore, Julia Oberst, said she saw the bingo night on the MyKSC Announcements page and came for the game, which won her a bag of a candy.
“I just love bingo,” Oberst said.
Another sophomore, Allegra Pickering, said she came to the event for the bingo game, but left with an interest in Up ‘til Dawn.
“I’m kind of interested to research it now and see what it’s all about,” Pickering stated.
Sachs concluded that she hopes they sparked an interest in those who came to the bingo night.
“We wanted to show a video explaining what Up ‘til Dawn is, but it didn’t work out, unfortunately. Still, I think this helped get our name out there,” Sachs said.
Sachs concluded that no students picked up applications to be on the executive board after bingo night.
She added, however, “There were a lot of people, actually, that couldn’t come and have already asked for applications. So, that’s exciting.”
Kim Borkowski can be contacted at kborkowski@ksc.mailcruiser.com