Students are checking in and helping themselves to refreshments while grabbing three separate cards. Redwood Hall will hold the annual Grocery Bingo event on Saturday, Nov. 9.

Every fall, CAB puts on a Grocery Bingo event to give away free groceries and also help relieve students from some of the stress of their classes in the semester.

One objective of CAB is to create a positive environment surrounding the members involved and the students that are participating in order to create a better experience at AU.

CAB has received multiple awards from the National Association for Campus Activities on a national level for four consecutive years from 1995 to 1998, and also obtaining Midwest regional accomplishments in 1999 through 2001, 2007 and 2011 through 2013.

When students check-in, they can help themselves to refreshments such as cookies and a variety of non-alcoholic beverages, such as hot chocolate, apple cider or water.

Grocery Bingo is also an award-winning annual event put on by CAB, as in 2013, they won the “Late Night/Alternative Program Award”, which is an award given to an event that occurs on Friday or Saturday after 9 p.m. and offering an alternative to alcohol consumption on campus.

Last school year, Grocery Bingo was held twice during the fall semester, once in September and then again in November.

For the past couple of years, the event has been located at Redwood Hall, which is on the Academic Quad between the library, Myers Hall, Jacobs Hall and Clayton Hall.

The first time Grocery Bingo was held last school year, cookies were offered, then there was Halloween candy for the November occurrence in 2018.

This November’s event is going to be a little different with the food aspect.

“We will be providing free Taco Bell to the students who come out and play, and traditionally it is a fun and packed event,” CAB member Maria Cirincione said.

There will be a sweet reward for anyone who calls out the titular name of the game.

“If they [a student] get a bingo they get to pick out a free grocery item,” Cirincione said.

But CAB is not the only organization involved in putting together Grocery Bingo.

The main organization behind the movie nights, the Technology Crew, is involved in all of the behind the scenes set-up of Grocery Bingo.

“The Tech Crew helps set tables, checks the need for a projector, and they just try to make sure that everything runs smoothly,” Jasmine Smith, tech crew member, said.

CAB students sit up at a stage covered in black lace and have a gold-colored bingo roller machine to draw the balls. One student stands to mark off what numbers have been called, while another holds up an example bingo card with gold dots to show what pattern is acceptable for bingo (e.g. X, classic five in a row [horizontal, vertical or diagonal], four corners, blackout).