On the evening of March 25, students gathered in the Overman Student Center ballrooms for Shamrock Bango, a St. Patrick’s Day themed bingo event centered around sex education. Hosted by the Gorilla Activities Board, the event gives students an opportunity to come together and participate in rounds of bingo for a chance to win a selection of sex toys.
GAB puts this activity on every year, and they say it always has a large turnout.
“This event specifically just brings in such a big crowd of people,” Morgan Scott, president of GAB and a senior nursing major, said. “It’s just really fun to see them connect with each other.”
Scott has served as president of GAB for two years and describes her position as overseeing people who plan the event. She was previously the programming chair, whose role is to plan and organize the events. With her experience, she says that the board prioritizes student interests when planning events like these.
“We do this for our students. We really think about them and what events they want to see on campus,” she said. “I just hope that they see that, and they enjoy it, and they start coming to more events.”
Scott also explained that the organization works with Adam and Eve, a company that produces adult toys, in order to provide the bingo prizes. These prizes are distributed through a raffle-style system, which keeps students engaged throughout the night.
Upon arrival, students are given two raffle tickets to put their names on and drop into their selection of prizes at the front. Additionally, every time a student wins a bingo, they are given more tickets, increasing their chances of winning a prize.
Kim Medina, a sophomore biology major and one of the bingo winners said she likes the excitement of watching other people play the game: “I like their reactions to winning it, that’s pretty fun.” She also said the event is “something people can do as a pastime to destress from school.”
The event can be educational, however, as projectors around the room display fun facts about sex for students to read and learn about. Refreshments are also provided for attendees, which include water bottles, and cookies that fit the theme of the night.
“It gets people together to communicate and make more friends,” Ashleigh Hartley said, a freshman GAB member majoring in accounting.
Alaina Esposito, a sophomore interior design major, was another bingo winner, and said, “I enjoy the fact that sex is okay to talk about. It’s not a taboo thing anymore,” she said. “Sex is a normal thing that everybody talks about, and everybody does.”
Tess Hargrove, a sophomore majoring in graphic communications, shared a similar perspective: “It promotes safe sex and the stigma around masturbation.”
This campus event is not the only one that promotes sex education and health. Pitt State’s Office of Prevention and Wellness, a part of Bryant Student Health Center, also hosts a similar event early in the year. It includes bingo with a variety of sex-positive prizes, as well as booths that give out information and resources that can aid students in safe and healthy sex.