Students participate in Grocery Bingo. 
The Lion's Roar/Karson Sharp

As the flood waters went down and the campus prepared for its first week once again, students flocked to the annual Grocery Bingo. 

Grocery Bingo is a joint effort opening event by Housing, the Campus Activities Board and the Pennington designed to help students prepare for college life. 

The games were held on Thursday, Aug. 18 from 5-7 p.m. While CAB After Dark was originally planned for this night, CAB chose to host Grocery Bingo. In grocery bingo, students are provided with bingo cards. If students had marked bingo horizontally, vertically or diagonally, they received prizes from Housing. Special bingo games also took place. These included blackout games and games where students had to have a cross or an H shape on their card to win. Students who won received prizes such as groceries, snacks, school supplies and dorm necessities.

According to CAB Coordinator Nick Elliott, the change was because of uncertainties about student presence on campus.

“Based off of numbers, what we saw with the Paint Party, we expected it wouldn’t be a large number of students,” said Elliott. “But there still are students on campus. I don’t know that exact number, but since there are still students, CAB, the Pennington and Housing discussed it and decided to offer something for the students that were here on campus.” 

According to Elliott, the event was chosen only days before it occurred, and CAB, University Housing and the Pennington all had to scramble to prepare.

“The quickest and easiest thing to plan was Grocery Bingo,” said Elliott. “We had two and a half days to plan all of this. The Rec already had bingo supplies, Housing had things they didn’t get to use for Move In Mania and CAB had pizza ordered, so we figured why not just bring the pizza here? It was a quick, easy setup and students could still enjoy it.” 

Free refreshments were also provided with the pizza. According to RA and senior history major John Collum, Housing provided prizes for those who won.

Some RAs saw a positive outcome come out of Grocery Bingo.

“It’s definitely something you have to do on campus,” said RA and junior psychology major Breland Sylve. “It’s something fun. People come together, there’s free food and people get competitive. It’s definitely a must do.”

Winner freshman business management major Zackery Norton shared his feelings about winning.

“It’s my first time playing,” said Norton. “I was kind of nervous to be honest. I didn’t want to be the first one to win, ended up winning. It feels great though. I won a bunch of snacks. Ramen, Doritos and Rice Krispy Treats.”

Collum and Elliott were both satisfied with the event’s turnout with Collum estimating the attendance of 150 students at one point.

“For the amount of time we had to prepare it was a massive success,” said Elliott.