Wheatland Lobos score a BINGO on their fundraiser

James Meyer
Posted 1/19/22

LOBOS fundraiser

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Wheatland Lobos score a BINGO on their fundraiser

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WHEATLAND – On December 31 at the Agriplex in the Platte County Fairgrounds, the Wheatland Lobos baseball team hosted a combined dinner, bingo night, and auction fundraiser.

The event started a 5:00 p.m. with a $5 chili dinner hosted by the team. All throughout the event, guests could enter the Agriplex’s kitchen and buy snacks, drinks, candy, and more food if they wished.

At the door, people could purchase two bingo cards for $20. A 50/50 raffle was also held with tickets purchasable for $1 apiece.

During the dinner and part of the bingo, guests could bid on a silent auction. The items for the auction were donated by the team’s sponsors and by the players themselves.

“We have a bunch of different sponsors, so we don’t get a direct sponsorship from anybody,” said Head Coach and Manager Braden Fagenbush.

“I’m going to guess that we probably have 30 businesses around the community that take really good care of us and I couldn’t be more grateful for what they do for us.”

The bingo portion of the event started one hour after the dinner and lasted for 20 rounds. 18 of those rounds had prizes of $25 for the winners, while two “blackout” rounds had $500 prizes.

The bingo was interrupted four times. The first break was called halfway through the rounds. The cost of extra bingo cards and refreshments was reduced during this time.

The next two rest periods were to close the silent auction and announce the winning bidders and engage in a live auction of baked goods.

The final time was to declare the winner of the 50/50 raffle, which collected a total of $288. The raffle’s winner decided to donate the money back to the team.

“Tonight was a huge success in my opinion,” said Fagenbush. “Just a ton of generous people coming out and supporting the Lobos.”

“Donating back winnings, 50/50 raffles, buying food, just having fun playing bingo. Anybody that came out today, I don’t care if you spent $1 or $1,000, we just really appreciate you guys coming out.”

The purpose of the event is to help fundraise for the baseball team. There are high costs to participating in the sport.

“We host this to fundraise,” said Fagenbush. “It’s really expensive to do what we do, and it’s a good way to get everyone together, have somebody get something out of it. It’s just nice to have everybody around.”

The money that is earned by the auction items which players donated goes back into the team and divided among them to help be able to play.

“All of the items that we actioned off were donated by our players,” said Fagenbush. “So our players pitched into that, we auctioned it off, and that’s how we split the money into our players funds to go toward our Legion baseball account.”

Fagenbush was grateful to everybody who came out to the fundraiser and is optimistic about the team’s prospects for next season and hopes to see people in the stands supporting them.

“I just want to thank everybody again for coming out,” said Fagenbush. “It was a great turnout, and we can’t do this without you guys.”

“A goal that I have for myself is to see the stands full, I want to see people out at the field. So be looking around town around April and we’ll have some posters up with the schedule.”