‘BINGO!’ Inside Tri-Valley game hall that serves as ongoing fundraiser for local nonprofits

Hunched over cards with daubers in hand, folks await a number-letter pairing from their nests of food and drink at cafeteria-style tables.

A ball is announced and the relative silence is cut with chatter as a player yells “BINGO!” and wins hundreds of dollars.

It was a Friday night in early September inside a charitable Bingo hall at the Livermore Town Center, a locus of routine and thrills for its multi-generational clientele every month.

Dubbed Bingo4CHEF, the game hall is the main fundraising arm for nonprofit organization Community Health & Education Foundation. As such, it has supported CHEF programming that has amassed over $8 million for over 50 local nonprofit organizations since 2018.

But given the shopping center’s planned demolition for a housing project, Bingo4CHEF faces an uncertain future with the need to relocate by late next year.

“The purpose was never simply to run or to operate a Bingo hall,” CHEF co-founder Maria Mancini told the Pleasanton Weekly. “Bingo was a way to create a sustainable source of charitable funding … at the same time, we’re providing a place of entertainment, a place of community.”

Inside the building with “The Bingo Ranch” marquee, regulars Patty Ambur and Todd Ambur sit diagonally at a table, per their typical orientation.

“My son sits here and my daughter sits here,” Patty Ambur of Fremont said, pointing to the empty seats usually filled on Saturdays. “Dad sits there.”

Every weekend, they are drawn to Bingo4CHEF for the thrill of winning and relaxation, albeit with different spending strategies.

“I try to manage my money,” Todd Ambur said. “I don’t like spending money, so winning makes me happy.”

Patty Ambur added, “I play like it’s my last day on Earth.” 

Meanwhile, both players were stamping Bingo cards.

Regardless of who buys more games, Todd Ambur said he gets a thrill out of gameplay.

“I can’t even think after I’ve won $1,500. I’m all jittery,” he said. “Even now, the adrenaline is there.”

The Amburs are among the nearly 2,500 players who pass through Bingo4CHEF monthly throughout the four games it hosts every week.

At the adults-only game hall, a buy-in ranges from $40 to $55 with main games winning between $1,000 to $1,500, depending on the day, Mancini said.

Side games cost extra, she added.

For-profit Bingo is a form of banned gambling in California, but it is permitted for nonprofit purposes.

Last year, CHEF amassed an average of about $115,000 monthly in net gaming income, according to Mancini.

The funds support CHEF’s matching program, where it runs fundraising campaigns for other local nonprofit organizations and supplies a 50% match of donations. The dollars also support its volunteer program in which CHEF grants local organizations funding in exchange for volunteer hours at the bingo hall. CHEF has clocked 20,000 volunteer hours in-house since 2018, Mancini said.

“It’s a pretty well-oiled machine at this point,” Mancini said with a laugh.

She and her husband John Di Simone began operating Bingo4CHEF in 2018, one year after founding CHEF and learning that the game hall’s operator intended to close the joint.

Prior to that, it was operated by Buenas Vidas Youth Ranch before the nonprofit shuttered in 2012, according to Mancini. Buenas Vidas was a group home for “troubled” children that shut down due to lack of funds, according to reporting in 2013 by the East Bay Times.

Under CHEF, players travel from across the region to play Bingo.

“We’re essentially bringing those charitable dollars into our community and then reinvesting them,” she explained.

On that Friday night in September, Central Valley residents Monica Cambosa and Rene Smith were among the game players contributing to the nonprofit coffers.

But Livermore locals, like Jennifer Kuhnke, also visit the hall.

As a weekly player, Kuhnke said she has been going to Bingo4CHEF for about a year, the same place her mom used to play prior to her death.

“It’s addicting in a way,” Kuhnke said of gameplay.

Kuhnke said she is also reminded of her mother, especially when the number 57 is called. 

“That was the year she was born. She always liked 57,” Kuhnke said.

Among the nonprofit organizations benefiting from CHEF’s fundraising is Tri-Valley Haven, which offers services to those affected by domestic violence and sexual assault.

With the help of CHEF’s matching program, Tri-Valley Haven has raised over $285,000 since 2021, according to Executive Director Christine Dillman.

“These funds have provided essential, life-changing services to survivors of interpersonal violence and their children,” she told the Weekly in an email interview.

The Tri-Valley Nonprofit Alliance is another beneficiary of CHEF’s matching program, which it has used for purposes such as issuing grants totaling at least $100,000 annually to local nonprofits and its launch of the CommonPoint Nonprofit Center.

“There really is nothing else quite like CHEF in our region,” TVNPA President and CEO Kathy Young told the Weekly. “At a time when government funding is increasingly uncertain, relatively few major foundations fund extensively in the Tri-Valley, and corporate giving is becoming tighter, having CHEF here as another avenue for nonprofits to raise money is invaluable.”

Looking toward the future, Mancini said Bingo4CHEF is expected to move out of the building by the last quarter of 2027.

She is currently searching for a new location for the hall.

“Bingo4CHEF is what makes this fundraising model possible, so finding a new home–It’s not just about preserving a Bingo game in town, but it’s about preserving the ability for us to continue providing this funding to the nonprofits throughout the Tri-Valley,” she said. 

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