CHESTERFIELD TOWNSHIP -- Senior citizen Darlene Murdoch is facing hip replacement surgery this month, but that didn't stop her from zipping from table to table recently to sell pull-tab lottery tickets to bingo players.
She didn't get paid for her work. Murdoch is a volunteer at a weekly bingo game whose profits go to the athletic boosters club at L'Anse Creuse High School in Harrison Township.
"It's for a good cause," a cheerful Murdoch said. "All of my kids are over 40 now. But they have a good crew of people here, and it's to support the (high school) kids."
L'Anse Creuse bingo, which started about 30 years ago in the school and now operates on Wednesday nights in a rented hall on Gratiot in Chesterfield Township, is one of six licensed by the state to support public schools in Macomb County.
Records kept by the state Lottery Bureau indicate Macomb County may be the queen of public school bingos in Metro Detroit. A handful of groups sponsor bingos in Wayne, Oakland or Livingston counties.
State Lottery Commissioner Gary Peters said he believes fewer bingo licenses have been issued in recent years to Metro Detroit groups because of the Detroit casinos. Sue Arnaiz, who chairs the L'Anse Creuse bingo, said attendance and profits slipped recently. She also attributes the decline to casinos.
More than 100 bingo players attended a recent L'Anse Creuse bingo in the rented hall.
But Arnaiz' group still generates about $40,000 in annual profits to fund athletic projects at the high school. The football lights and a new concession stand were built with bingo proceeds, she said.
The L'Anse Creuse weekly bingos once were played in the school's gym. But the needs of various sports teams for more gym time, as well as a new state law that bans smoking in public school buildings, meant the operation had to rent a private hall, said the school's principal, Patrick Mulcahy.
"If you don't allow smoking, you're not going to have a bingo (crowd)," said Arnaiz.
A booster club at Mount Clemens High School hopes to disprove that truism, but is having limited success.
The club started a weekly bingo party in August in the school's cafeteria and is now averaging about 60 players a night, which is near its break-even point. State law allows smoking outside public school buildings after 6 p.m.
"We give them two 10-minute breaks to go outside and smoke," said organizer Fred Warner.
When a local church decided to quit having bingo fund-raisers, the Mount Clemens school boosters bought its bingo equipment for $200.
Officials in Mount Clemens, one of many financially struggling public school districts in Michigan, are under no illusions that the weekly bingos started in August by its high school athletic boosters club will be a major revenue source.
But if bingo can pay the expenses of some students for an out-of-town class or club trip, or buy sports equipment, then the effort is worth it, said athletic director Bob Giles.
"One of the nice things about bingo is that we're not having kids going door to door selling" goods, Giles said.
At Kelly Middle School in Eastpointe, bingos are sponsored only on a few selected nights during the school year. The activity is done less for fundraising reasons and more as a social activity, according to Principal Ira Hamden.
"It's an opportunity for (non-parents) in the community to come in and visit the school," Hamden said.
"Many are people who would normally not come into our building." Kelly's parent-teacher-student organization raises $300-$500 from a typical bingo, the principal added.
The money has been used for expenses as diverse as volleyball equipment for the school gym to subsidizing a class trip to Washington, D.C.
