Basket Bingo

I recently learned about something essential to Lancaster County culture that I've managed to miss for the last 25 years: Basket Bingo. Basket Bingos are fundraisers where attendees pay for entrance and a set number bingo cards—and they are apparently some of the wildest times to be had. Businesses or individuals sponsor baskets, which are then filled with donated items, yielding the "cleaning supplies basket," "crafter's basket," "snacks basket," etc. Each round of bingo is played with a particular basket as the prize. And people love this.

Crucial to their success are the Longaberger brand baskets, which some people really go bananas for around here. Wikipedia explains that Longaberger baskets became popular in the '80s and '90s "concurrent with 'country' decorating trends." Longaberger baskets are sold at parties, much like Tupperware or Avon products: a person offers to host a basket party and invites friends and neighbors, a sales representative shows up with some inventory and then people buy it.I'm not completely sure what the selling point is for a basket; I guess it's basically the "it" accessory of home decor.* Also probably related to their popularity is the basket party itself. What helped fuel the success of the Tupperware party in the '50s (era of widespread house-wifery) was the opportunity for women to get together with friends outside their homes. A surprising number of women in this area maintain the “full time mom” position and certainly don't “party,” and so maybe these gatherings still thrive because they offer an opportunity for friends to get together, drop $50 on a napkin holder, and basically go a little wild.

But back to the bingo. The particular event I was told of drew about 350 people on a Sunday in a snowstorm. Tickets were $15 and bought entrance to the event plus 20 bingo cards (coinciding with 20 prize baskets). Additional tickets were sold at $1 per, and there was chicken BBQ (a total draw) and donated desserts. The whole thing raised almost $10,000. Enormous! That’s about $30 per person for some small games of chance, a possibility of winning some fashionable baskets, BBQ chicken and some homemade chocolate chip cookies—plus the opportunity to experience the fervor. I think I just convinced myself that Basket Bingo is awesome.

Take that, black tie.


*When I was little my mom went to a basket party. She came home and announced, “I bought one.” She put it in just about every corner of the house in an effort to get enthused about her pseudo accomplishment of owning the thing. Finally she gave in to the fact that she didn’t really like it and gave it away.**

**There’s one thing that gets me unabashedly excited about Longaberger baskets, which is the fact that their headquarters in Ohio is shaped like a giant basket, handles and all.