LEWISTON — Inside the Pleasant Street Bingo hall recently, players came early to eat, play scratch tickets, peel tickets and 50-50.

At 6 p.m., the important game began. “I-18, N-42, O-61” were called on the loudspeaker as players scanned cards, their markers at the ready.

They love bingo.

“My mother got me playing when I was 16,” Louise Audet of Minot said.

“I go whenever I can,” her mother, Jeanne Cote, 81, of Auburn, said.

The mother and daughter, and hundreds of regulars aren’t just having a good time. They’re raising money for area students through the Lewiston Youth Activity Fund’s bingo games.

Since January, LYAF has donated more than $25,000 to students and programs. The organization has given $6,000 to Lewiston elementary school libraries to buy books.

After the Lewiston High cheerleaders won the state championship, LYAF bought championship jackets. LYAF paid for certificates to reward Farwell Elementary School students promoted to the middle school, donated money to the middle school to buy prizes, movie passes and restaurant coupons to reward good student behavior.

LYAF buys sneakers, supplies and snacks for students who would have gone without.

It was founded, and is run by, Jane Burns of Lewiston, a kind of blue-collar philanthropist. Her day job is running the Jami K’s Variety store on Scribner Boulevard. She’s at the bingo hall most nights.

Burns said she and her five sisters and one brother were raised in a Franco-American family that loves to gamble. Dinners were followed by poker and card games. “When JR was shot, we had a pool,” said Burns’ sister, Donna Spugnardi, head elementary librarian for the Lewiston School Department.

Three of Burns’ sisters work for the Lewiston School Department. When they got together for weekly card games, conversations turned to things students needed.

“We’d say, ‘We can’t get any new tennis uniforms? Or we can’t get any books?’” Burns said. “The kids want this or that, why don’t they have it?”

There is a significant taxpayer-supported school budget, “but it is never enough,” Spugnardi said.

After enough of those conversations, Burns said, “Why can’t we have bingo?” In 1999 she formed LYAF and applied for a bingo license. Two years later the games began.

The focus is to provide supplies that keep kids engaged, active and participating in programs they’re interested in, the sisters said. They showed off scrapbooks full of letters from students thanking them.

As they talked, tables in the hall were filling with players. “This is home to a lot of people,” Burns said. “They are here every night. They have their seat, friends that they meet. It’s good clean fun.”

Millie Roberts of Lewiston plays on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, with her friend Ethel Rueda of Lewiston.

“It’s terrific” that proceeds help students, Rueda said. “They need it very badly.”

As the women talked one was overseeing 36 bingo cards, the other 48.

Sheldon Child of Lewiston was there as a volunteer. He runs the cash register, verifies winners on the floors and calls the balls. “It’s good to see everybody,” he said, adding that volunteering “is good for the soul.”

Julie Madore, 78, of Lewiston, plays almost every night. “I can’t go up the stairs. This is on one floor. It’s close to my house.” She comes for bingo, not because it benefits students, “but I really appreciate it.”

Lewiston School Superintendent Bill Webster said LYAF and the Lewiston High School Music Boosters bingo game proceeds help maintain sports programs and other enrichment activities. “We literally get thousands of dollars a year. They are so important.”

Bingo also supports high school musicians, singers

LEWISTON – Another group that offers bingo games to raise educational program money is the Lewiston High School Music Association.

 “We started out as the band boosters group. We broadened our group to include all music programs,” said Sharon Deveau, member and past vice president. The association’s bingo games, offered on Saturday nights at the Pleasant Street hall, allow the group to do a lot to support high school musicians and singers.

“We’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars,” Deveau said. “We have other fund raisers, but the bulk of our money comes from bingo.”

Recently the group bought a new $11,000 sound system for the chorale, paid for a $5,600 awards banquet for the musical and vocal groups, bought $4,000 worth of new instruments, including a cello and bass, and gave out $5,000 in scholarships.

In addition, over a number of years the group has saved $50,000 earmarked for new high school marching band uniforms when the membership has grown large enough.

“Our mission is to help the music programs look and sound good,” Deveau said.