Bingo A Sure Hit Among Young Players at the Junior League Program

The once a month bingo event is the new activity planned by the Junior League. The main reason for the event is to gather young children into the hospital’s playroom and help them socialize while they are at the hospital with the use of the monitors and videos.

Caitlin Byles, a 12 year-old patient, said that she really had fun playing bingo. Even the patient’s relatives like Evelyn Scaffe, Caitlin’s grandmother, said that the bingo event helped her granddaughter forget that she was even a patient at the hospital.

The employees at the hospital like Paige Cox, the Sutton Children’s Childlife specialist, say that the bingo events allow the children to make friends and participate with their peers. Charon Whitman, the head project volunteer of the bingo event, said that bingo events help the children gain a more positive attitude as they face each new day. Patients that participate in the bingo events are there in the hospital for various reasons like asthma problems, severe allergy reactions, serious gastric problems, sickle cell anemia problems and cystic fibrosis.

For the kids that do not know their numbers, volunteers have replaced the bingo numbers with items that the kids know, like masks, stethoscopes, gloves, an x-ray, bandages, a urinal, Ace bandage, alcohol wipes, catheter and other medical equipment and things that can be found in a hospital.

To make the event even more enjoyable, the volunteers entertained the kids with dances and even held up signs encouraging them to keep playing better.

There are also a lot of prizes that the kids can select from carried in a big red wagon pulled down the hall by League Volunteer, Karen Stubbs. Winners, like 5 year-old Christian Deas, a student at the North Highland Elementary School, just could not decide what to pick, but in the end, he agreed to the watch Karen suggested. After that, Stubbs was off to another room as another bingo night at the Sutton Children’s Hospital draws to a close.