A Bingo Success Story: Chelsea Hutchison Foundation Board of Directors by Julie Hutchison

The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation is a Colorado nonprofit corporation formed to provide help and support to individuals, particularly children and young adults, who have epilepsy. Chelsea touched many lives during her short 16 years here, and we are amazed at how many people she continues to touch through the foundation even after her passing. Her generous heart longed to see love and care come to others.

In her memory, The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation is designed to assist people living with epilepsy. Funds raised by this foundation provide grants for fully trained seizure-response dogs and for what we believe to be life-saving movement monitors to those in need. We educate the public about SUDEP (Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy) and provide support to those who have been affected by SUDEP. The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation exists to raise awareness and to grant comfort, hope, and positivity to individuals and families living with epilepsy. To date, The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation has had the privilege of providing 106 seizure-response dog grants and has provided over 530 nighttime and daytime movement monitors for those in need. We have awarded 44 families with wish trips to the one-of-a-kind Epilepsy Awareness Expo and Day at Disneyland. The Expo offers a wealth of information and exposure to professionals, treatment options, education, and hope.

Our journey with Bingo began in April of 2016. We enthusiastically took on this project in hopes of not only raising awareness, but raising funds for our mission. It seemed like a win, win for everyone involved. Instead of always begging our donors for help, individuals could attend and enjoy Bingo and we could raise funds. What an amazing break that was for us! Never in our wildest imagination did we realize just how much fun we would have and the amount of funds we would raise. We even have bingo guests who have needed our help and we’ve have had the opportunity to educate them on the risks and provide life-saving monitoring devices for them.

In addition to hosting Bingo, we have several event years each year. We aren’t big and do not attract the attention of corporations as the big non-profits do. Until Bingo, we were always catching up on the many requests we receive weekly for assistance. The monitors we provide are not covered by insurance, nor is there any funding for seizure-response service dogs and families who are a part of the epilepsy community are almost always financially stressed and exhausted. With the funds raised through Chelsea’s Bingo, not only have we been able to keep up with requests and full them quickly, we have been able to almost double our impact.

I’ll bet you didn’t know, epilepsy affects over 3 million Americans of all ages – more than multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and Parkinson’s disease – COMBINED! Almost 500 new cases of epilepsy are diagnosed every day and it is estimated that up to 50,000 Americans die from seizure and seizure-related causes every year in the US. 1 in 10 will have a seizure in their lifetime and 1 in 25 will be diagnosed with epilepsy.

Segregated Bingo-Raffle Bank Account Requirements

Bingo-Raffle Law requires each licensee to keep a segregated special account that contains proceeds obtained from games of chance activities (CRS 24-21-622(3)(a)), and which contains ONLY this money. No other funds obtained by the licensed group outside what is received as receipts from the playing of charitable games covered by the Bingo-Raffle License can be deposited or transferred into this account. Therefore, other funds received, such as donations to the organization, cannot be deposited into this account, either directly or indirectly.

Likewise, no funds can be transferred from the Bingo-Raffle account to any other fund or account of the licensee. Funds from the bingo-raffle account must be spent directly from that account to an outside payee specifically for the lawful purposes of the licensed organization.

Transferring of funds across accounts, either into or out of the bingo raffle account from another fund or account of the licensee, is a direct violation of the law, and will result in fines as described in Rule 15.4.2(h) of the Bingo-Raffle Rules.

Please consult with our office if you have any questions about the Bingo Raffle account and the use of funds from that account..

Charitable gaming – Revenue

As we start a new year of bingo/raffle reporting it’s good to look back at previous years to see what trends are showing. Overall profit percentage (as a percent of amount wagered) remains consistent with previous years at 20%.

All bingo activities are showing minor increases with the overall bingo profit up 1% over previous years. Activities other than bingo are all showing slight decreases.

Net profit for progressive pull tabs remains consistent at 14%. From reporting provided by licensees revenue for progressive pull tabs at bingo is still increasing.

You can see much more detail on the charitable gaming financial report, located in PDF form on our website here.

Games Manager Training

Remember, your organization must have at least one certified Games Manager in order to run charitable games, and we recommend licensees maintain more than one. We continue to offer in-person and online Games Manager training courses.

Sign up for the online eLearning course on our website.

For in-person classes, visit our Games Manager Training page and follow the instructions to sign up for a scheduled class.

The dates/times/places of upcoming Games Manager training classes follow:

Saturday, May 19, 2018 at 8:30 AM. BPO Elks 1577, 43 W Victory Way, Craig, CO 81525

Wednesday, May 23, 2018 at 5:30 PM. BPO Elks 309, 3400 N Nevada Ave, Colorado Springs, CO 80907

Saturday, June 16, 2018 at 8:30 AM. BPO Elks 1789, 2199 Dolores, Cortez, CO 81321

Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 9:00 AM. BPO Elks 492, 421 Main St, Ouray, CO 81427

Saturday, July 21, 2018 at 8:30 AM. Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish Hall, 499 Lewis St, Pagosa Springs, CO 81147

You can also sign up to host a Games Manager training course. Follow this link to provide us with a few details about you and your organization, and host a class soon.

The Games Manager mail-in certification exam is no longer available.