Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries may nix volunteer bingo program

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This article was published 15/02/2017 (3195 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The future of the volunteer bingo program that helps fund more than 400 non-profit groups across Manitoba has been officially filed under the NO” for “not certain.”

The bingos will still run at provincial casinos but no longer need volunteers from various sports, community and charity groups who used them as fundraisers.

Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries started notifying stakeholders last week that it can no longer justify the fundraising program because automation has eliminated the need for volunteers to run the bingos.

The province announced late Wednesday afternoon that grant money will remain in place for 2017-18, even though volunteers are no longer needed. That is, the bingo volunteer program grants will still be distributed but don’t bother sending down volunteers.

“The decision was made because there’s virtually no paper bingo anymore,” said MLL spokeswoman Andrea Kowal.

The Crown corporation has begun a review of the program, which pays out $4 million annually, she said.

For decades, MLL has doled out grants where non-profit groups ran bingos at its casinos, thereby saving MLL having to staff them.

But the old practise of marking paper bingo cards with pink dabbers has gone the way of the plains bison. Volunteers would show up at the bingos and just stand around with nothing to do. There are only 70 seats left for paper bingo at the Club Regent Casino, and none at the McPhillips Station Casino, Kowal said.

The Manitoba Schizophrenic Society has been receiving bingo grants for more than 20 years. The MSS depends on grants from many sources but losing the bingo money would leave a big hole, said executive director Chris Summerville.

“Our concern would be are you then going to be able to give us grants in place of the voluntary bingo,” executive director Chris Summerville said.

Wednesday’s announcement trumped MLL’s earlier notification that the grant monies would only be guaranteed up until March 31.

Even so, people who run non-profit groups like Summerville are concerned the change could mean scaling back the grant amounts in the future. Many groups worry about what might replace the bingo program, coming at a time when the Pallister government is wielding a budget axe to tackle the provincial deficit.

The Woodlot Association of Manitoba (WAM) had been approved to run bingos in April and May worth $20,000 to fund forestry education programs but was told last week not to bank on it anymore. Yesterday’s announcement was good news.

The volunteer bingo program “is significant because small non-profits like ours have great difficulty trying to find alternative funding sources,” said Irene de Graaf, WAM president.

WAM has about 60 members. There are about 1,500 managed woodlots in Manitoba that are harvested or kept for aesthetic or environmental reasons. “We educate, we advocate, and we bring industry folks together, especially with climate change now,” said de Graaf.

The loss of the money from the bingo volunteer program would have been devastating to the hundreds of volunteer groups that have come to rely on them. Organizations serving sports, the arts, community services, culture and heritage, as well as ethnic groups, all use bingo money to survive. Groups were able to earn between $1500 and $3000 per bingo worked.

Running a bingo used to require about a dozen volunteers, said Kowal. The number was cut to four in recent years. Now it’s none.

The province has run the volunteer bingo program since 1984 when Manitoba Lotteries Commission took over bingo operations from private bingo halls. The program was operated out of provincial casinos when Club Regent and McPhillips Street Station opened in 1993.

Government justified its venture into gambling back then by promising money would be used to benefit health care and communities.

Distribution of bingo monies are decided upon by six government-funded umbrella organizations: Manitoba Arts Council, Manitoba Community Service Council, Sport Manitoba, Multiculturalism Secretariat, Heritage Grants Advisory Council, and Manitoba Community Education Association.

Recipients of bingo money from the Manitoba Arts Council includes dance companies, theatre groups, and galleries, while bingo grants allocated through Sport Manitoba cover just about every sport under the sun.

The Manitoba Community Services Council has a volunteer council that meets monthly to decide on who gets bingo grants. It then distributes bingo money to such groups as parent advisory councils, daycares, senior centres, community centres, libraries, and groups that work with new immigrants. Organizations have to be volunteer-driven with volunteer boards.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca