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09/08/2021 08:30 AMHaven’t played bingo in a while? The Friends of the Essex Library can do something about that. They are sponsoring a bingo game with an original twist. It is Bingo with Friends, a fundraiser to benefit the Essex Library.
Bingo with Friends was the idea of Friends of the Library President Lisa Burkarth as an innovative way to help the Essex library that will also benefit Essex merchants.
Each square on the Bingo with Friends card, available at the Essex Library, has the name of a local Essex merchant. When participants go to the named stores, they get a sticker on the appropriate square. No purchase in the store is necessary.
When players have filled one line, either vertically, horizontally or diagonally, they bring the card back to the Essex Library. They are then entered for a drawing of prize money. The game runs from Monday, Sept. 20 to Friday, Nov. 19. The drawing will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 23. There are five cash prizes from $500 to $100. The prize money was contributed by the participating merchants, $50 from each business on the card.
“It increases foot traffic in stores and gets people visiting local merchants, and it benefits the library,” Lisa says. “And the raffle is right before the holidays, a bit of extra money if you win.”
Lisa first heard about a community bingo game at a Zoom meeting of friends of the library groups from all over the state. One attendee from Berlin described a bingo game sponsored by local car dealers where people got cards and took them around to local merchants for stickers to fill the squares. The idea was to get people out in the community and support a business revival after the COVID lockdown.
Lisa thought the idea could be repurposed for the Essex Friends of the Library group.
“I thought it would be a great fundraiser,” she says.
She explained the idea to Essex merchants at a Board of Trade meeting.
“Some people signed up [as sponsors] right there,” she recalls.
Friends of the Library raises money for equipment, materials, and programs outside of regular budget lines that expand the library’s ability to serve the community. They also volunteer for tasks like shelving and mending books. Many people know the friends through the sales of donated books they hold.
COVID precautions meant the group’s last book sale was outdoors, but the upcoming sale on Saturday, Oct. 16 is planned as an indoor event.
Lisa got involved in the Friends of the Library after she retired two years ago from Eversource. In her last position, she was a manager of digital strategy, a position that involved working with the company’s website.
She had 30 years of service and had just turned 55, but colleagues questioned her decision.
“They told me I was too young,” she says, but she was not dissuaded; she wanted to volunteer and she wanted to spend more time with her 90-year-old mother who lives in Madison, where she grew up.
She had no hesitation about where she would volunteer.
“The library. It’s right around the corner,” she says.
Lisa graduated from Daniel Hand high school in Madison and went on to Centenary College (now University) in New Jersey. She chose the school because she was particularly interested in a major it offered: equine science. Growing up, Lisa had her own horse, which she boarded locally in Madison.
As part of her equine science study, which included everything from equine genetics to how to set up a competitive jumping course, she spent a semester at a program similar to Centenary’s in England in Cranbrook, a town about 45 minutes from London.
After graduation, Lisa worked as a manager of a farm where polo ponies were trained in Vermont, but found that the pleasure of working with horses was fading.
“I wasn’t getting the joy that I used to,” she recalls.
There was another problem as well: “It doesn’t pay.”
Lisa took a job with Daughters of Isabella, an organization for Catholic women inspired by Knights of Columbus. The group was founded by a priest in New Haven in 1897 and now has branches throughout the United States and Canada. Lisa worked there for several years before joining Eversource.
While at Eversource, she earned an MBA from the University of Connecticut.
Getting involved with friends of the Library has introduced Lisa to new friends.
“It’s a great group of people I never would have me if I hadn’t joined,” she says.
It has also led to another volunteer opportunity, helping to cook dinners at the Essex meal site at St. John’s Episcopal Church for Shoreline Soup Kitchens & Pantries. Lisa got involved through a longtime member of the Friends of the Library.
For bingo enthusiasts, Lisa points out that Bingo with Friends offers three different cards with different arrangements of merchants in the squares. That means that bingo lovers can purchase all three cards and play the game more than once.
Bingo with Friends cards are available at the Essex Library. The game runs from Monday, Sept. 20 to Friday, Nov. 19 with a prize drawing on Tuesday, Nov. 23. For information on the Friends of the Essex Library, go to: www:youressexlibrary.org and click on Friends.