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Schools

Nanuet Students and Parents Gather for Last Bingo Knight of School Year

The event, run by the Nanuet Elementary PTA, gives families a chance to have fun together during the cold winter months

Everybody wins at Bingo!

At least that was the case Friday night at Barr Middle School, where the Nanuet Elementary PTA held its third and final Bingo Knight of the school year. Each round of bingo contained multiple winners and there were also raffle prizes given away to the children and the adults. At the end of the night every child who did not already have a prize was allowed to come up and take one, so everyone who attended went home a winner.

PTA President Michelle Mazzaro first started the Bingo Knight last March after attending a bingo event herself. She felt it would be a good way for students and parents to come together and have fun during the cold months of the year when it is harder to have fun outside. The event proved so popular that the PTA held three more this year.

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“We just decided that it was going to be a good thing for PTA,” Mazzaro said. “Nobody had ever done it, so it looked like it was a fun thing to do in the winter to get the families out.”

Participants at the Bingo Knight could pay for admittance, an ink dauber and/or pizza. The event also featured raffles throughout the night and a bake sale. However most of the money earned at the Bingo Knight events ends up going into the running of the event itself and the buying of the prizes. In fact, that the PTA actually makes little money with the Bingo Knight events, but Mazzaro pointed out that the real goal of the night was not to raise money but to give families something fun they could do together.

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“It gives them all something to do,” Mazzaro said of the Bingo Knight. “It really doesn’t cost a lot of money and it’s the middle of the winter. There’s nothing to do, so it kind of gets everybody out and they get to see their friends and they get to have fun.”

One portion of the event that did raise money, however, was the 50/50 raffle. Money raised selling these raffle tickets went toward rebuilding the . Mazzaro is the president of the steering committee spearheading the rebuilding effort.

The 50/50 raffle raised $150 towards the playground, which was then upped to $300 when the raffle winner, Kimberly Moss, donated her winnings towards the rebuilding effort.

Perhaps as a karmic reward for her good deed, Moss immediately afterwards won the main prize in the regular raffle, a new digital camera.

“It just seemed like the right thing to do,” Moss said of her donation. “I had so many hours enjoying the park with my kids that I really want another park there, not only for my kids, but future generations.”

Nanuet High School students also gave back by helping out at the event, doing everything from selling baked goods to flipping the numbers on the giant board on the stage of the cafeteria that showed which numbers had already been called in that bingo round.

For the parents, like Eileen O’Connell, who has attended all four Bingo Knights with her daughter Maeve, the real joy of the event was seeing their children have great times with their families and friends.

“It’s so much fun. The kids love it. They get to see their friends, they have a lot of excitement, they have great prizes. Everybody gets to win. Nobody goes away a loser.”

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