Grocery Bingo sparks competition, hunger

Grocery Bingo sparked some intense competition on Thursday. Student Activities Council hosted its third Grocery Bingo event of the school year to help students restock their mini-fridges for the remainder of the semester.

The event started at 9 p.m. but students arrived much earlier than that to snag a seat. As students entered Mabee Gym, they picked up a bingo sheet with nine games of bingo on it, as well as a bingo marker. The seriousness of the event was told through the rainbow of markers available for students to choose from.

When SAC member Ashley Riniker announced the beginning of the event, she laid out some ground rules. There were 10 rounds of bingo, nine of which had two winners who would receive brown paper sacks filled with snacks galore. The 10th round was the final blackout round with the largest grocery prize.

Freshman Kinsey Ford, a member of SAC, helped set up the grocery bags for the event. Some of the bags contained chips, ramen noodles, candy bars, Slim Jims, Oreos, pop cans and much more.

“It is a college person’s dream,” Ford said.

When the numbers started rolling, frustration starting building for some students as more and more people yelled “Bingo!”

One winner felt the heat as she claimed her ultimate prize from the blackout round.

“It’s pretty exciting but I felt pretty hated,” freshman Abie Roorda said.

Roorda has been to the other two grocery bingo events this year, but this was her first time winning.

Another winner, freshman Miranda Lindmark, sparked some aggravation when she went head-to-head with another winner. Both ended up winning the two prizes for that round. Lindmark was glad that the SAC members let her win even though she reached the front of the room second.

“I’m about to devour this whole thing,” Lindmark said, with the sack full of groceries she had just won in her hands.

Free food was definitely the one thing on everyone’s mind at SAC’s Grocery Bingo, and as a result there was some intense competition over who would end up going home with a bag full of snacks.