“Out of all the bingo halls, we love playing at the CCC the most.”

The Negrete family plays bingo at a recent Tuesday night at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center.
Photo courtesy Dorie Sugay

By Dorie Sugay

Dorie Sugay

You can write a monthly check to help the Senior Center provide programs that help older adults, or you can attend a weekly fun event at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center and accomplish the same goal. Imagine an activity that allows the adults in a family to engage in friendly competition, tightening family ties while raising funds for a good cause.

Imagine taking your staff to a night of fun, a night of bonding, a night to unwind while helping enrichment programs for older adults to continue. Imagine hitting not two — but three birds with one stone — get grandpa out of the house and avoid isolation, engage him in an activity that exercises his brain but does not tax his body, while supporting a cause.

What about an activity that surrounds and feeds grandma’s need for socialization, yet allows her to choose how much interaction she is comfortable with? What can accomplish these? What can be so fun, so easy, and yet helpful to the community? Tuesday Bingo at the CCC. Really, bingo? Isn’t bingo for old people? Not at all.

“Out of all the bingo halls, we love playing at the CCC the most,” said regular player Amanda Magdalena. “We love the atmosphere, the variety of games. It is comforting to know that it is for a great cause — for our own Morgan Hill seniors.”

And indeed, it is for a great cause.  But don’t forget, you just might be rewarded by Lady Luck and come home with some winnings yourself. Now what is there out there that gives you an opportunity to give back and yet provides you with entertainment and … might actually send you home “ahead of the game” with more cash than you spent at the door?

The Senior Center has a lot of great programs and funds from the Tuesday Bingo has granted more than $300,000 to date, thanks to the dedication and work by the Friends of the Morgan Hill Senior Center (a 501c3), led by Cricket Rubino. It has helped keep the center’s programs going — from the Lifelong Learning Series which brings in guest speakers who focus on topics of interest to the aging population, to the RYDE program, which provides curb-to-curb transportation, to helping the center reopen after the pandemic and most recently hosting the Community Resource Fair. The funds have also helped the YMCA Youth Nutrition Program.

The doors open at 4:30 p.m. Early bird games start at 5:45 p.m., regular games at 6:30 p.m. To participate, one must be at least 18. Snacks and drinks are available for purchase. No alcoholic drinks served. No tough requirements — a listening ear to hear the individual calling out the bingo numbers, the ability to see the cards (bring your eye glasses!) and of course, the willingness to have fun and maybe even make new friends.

One of our greatest human needs is to belong. The shelter-in-place, though important for our health, yanked us away from “our community.” Recent research in neuroscience conducted by Stephen Porges, PhD, provided evidence that our nervous systems respond to one another when in a community, establishing a link between companionship and happiness. (The study highlighted that a community consisting of people from different age groups, provides the most benefits). The weekly bingo is a way to re-establish yourself in the community.  It is a comfortable, safe place to start building relationships (or connections) again — one where a simple “hi” to a player sitting alone, qualifies as an act of kindness.

Where else can you accomplish so many things — for yourself, with your friends and family, for the community? Remember, you need to relate, not isolate, to age with an attitude.

Dorie Sugay is the executive director of Visiting Angel and involved with senior issues in Morgan Hill. She can be reached at (408) 846-2988 or email here at [email protected].