The Student Government Association collected quarter donations in the Batten Student Center over the past four weeks for the Virginia Beach Housing Resource Center. Brock Village, the village that raised the most money, was planned to be rewarded with a bingo night where they can win prizes, however due to new COVID-19 regulations, the event was changed to a Raffle Night.
“At first we had a hard time choosing if we wanted it to be a competition,” said SGA President Bri Jones.
“Village III made a big jump with a $50 donation from Andrew Taylor. He turned it into a fun competition within his fraternity with Sushi King for the winners and some of the other fraternities began to get involved,” Jones said.
Bingo was supposed to be played in four rounds with the first three rounds having three games and the fourth being a blackout. The first round prizes included VWU gear and the second included gift bundles from Five Below.
“It was looking like Village III or IV was going to win it and we wanted to reward them with things they could use in their kitchens,” said SGA Treasurer Joey Mueller. Third round prizes included a Keurig coffee maker, a twelve piece pot and pan set and a game bundle with games
like Cards Against Humanity and Jenga.
The grand prize was a 100-inch portable outdoor screen and projector, a prize Jones felt was a good way for students to have socially distanced fun outdoors.
Mueller felt that community outreach was the best way for the SGA to help fix an issue in the area after working with the resource center in January.
“[VBHRC] got a grant so that they could put some of the residents up in hotels to accommodate COVID-19 guidelines and what they don’t have, due to the whole change shortage, is quarters for the washing machines in the hotels,” Mueller said.
“I’m generally surprised we did really well. We started hot and kind of fizzled down because four weeks is a long time to be collecting the same thing but we broke $200 in donations. I’m just genuinely impressed by college kids having spare change and being willing to just part with it,” Mueller said.
Because of stricter COVID-19 regulations, SGA decided to make the event a Raffle night. Raffles could be collected in the Student Activities office by Brock Village Residents and the drawing occurred on Nov. 17 at 8:15 p.m. Winners were announced on the SGA instagram page (@SGA_Marlins_).
Jones and Mueller would like to thank Director of Student Activities, Sarah Guzzo, for her help with advertising and putting the events on, the SGA class officers, Andrew Taylor for donating 25% of the total proceeds and the student body for showing up and participating.
By AJ Adan
ajadan@vwu.edu
