When the 2008 ASSP Senior Gift Committee met to begin brainstorming fundraising ideas for this year's senior gift, they realized that they didn't have clear directions on how to proceed.

As the committee started working with University Advancement in their planning, they found that there were no records on the work of previous committees. So they "really had to start from scratch" in their planning, said ASSP President Daniel Miller, one of the committee members.

Eventually, they settled on a goal: raise $5,000 to purchase 10 multi-purpose TVs for the Student Union Building (SUB), Gwinn Commons, and Weter Hall. In order to reach it, they decided to host a Bingo night and two other fundraisers.

Last Friday in the Lower Gym, the committee held the Bingo night, bringing in $357 in revenue to go directly to the senior gift. Though the original goal was $5,000 for the gift, Miller said that they will not be able to reach that figure.

"No matter how much we raise...we can still give ASSP a start" to be able to finish the project in a future year, he said.

The giving of an annual senior gift is a long-standing tradition at SPU. In 1966, the senior class of Seattle Pacific College donated the Demaray Hall clock tower to the school. In 1992, the senior class gave their alma mater the signage outside the east entrance to the SUB. Last year, the SPU senior class began the process for the development of a study abroad department.

Miller said that they have tried to provide subsequent committees with "a basis for the future" by keeping better records of their fundraising and passing on ideas on how to fundraise well. He said that junior Katie Barnes, next year's Senior Gift Committee chair, definitely wants to do Bingo again.

At the Bingo night, for a five-dollar entrance fee, students were able to play four rounds of Bingo, enjoy baked goods, and compete for prizes while watching performances by several SPU musicians. The performers at the event included senior Moorea Seal, junior Scott P. Johnson, and junior Matt Goodwin. There were also tables set up where students could check out the Cascade yearbook and learn more about the goals of this year's senior gift fundraiser.

After a power overload early in the night forced the organizers to distribute power usage outside the gym, the event went as planned by the committee. Bingo tables, covered with paper and candy pieces that served as card markers, seated dozens of students who shouted and raised hands with calls of "Bingo!" throughout the evening.

Miller and several others seniors organized and ran the Senior Gift Committee this year. Miller said they chose to hold a Bingo night after they "brainstormed on what we could do for low cost events." They gauged interest in Bingo based on word of mouth and asking around to see who would be interested, he said.

Some of the prizes at the event included tickets to a screening of the upcoming film, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," and coupons and gift cards for Cold Stone Creamery, Stell's Burgers and More, and other locales. The two "final round" prizes were a $75 gift card to Barnes and Noble and a $100 gift package for Stone Gardens rock climbing gym.

All prizes were donated to ASSP for the cause.

The Bingo night was the first of the three parts of the ongoing fundraising project, Miller said. Another is a "Phone-raiser," in which old cell phones and inkjet cartridges can be donated to ASSP for environmentally friendly disposal that will bring in money for the cause. The other is the collection of direct donations from the senior class of 2008.

With the total money collected from the fundraisers, the "first priorities are to get TVs that will...replace bulletin boards" in the SUB and Gwinn, Miller said. If they don't meet their original goal of 10 TVs, he said, the committee still hopes to obtain at least two large TVs and four smaller ones. These units will be used in the different buildings for displaying campus announcements and national and world news, and to help facilitate different programs and activities.

Senior Stephanie Dost, an electrical engineering major who is on the committee, said that which TV models the committee will buy is still undecided.

The committee wants the new TVs to be able to display slideshows and presentations, like the flat screen monitors used in the library and McKenna Hall, Miller said. But both Miller and Dost said that the committee will buy cheaper models that may have built-in DVD players. With that feature, users can directly load Power Point presentations and other features into the units via CDs and DVDs.

"We're going to talk to CIS quite a bit," Miller said.

He said the committee hopes to have all of the fundraising finished for these new TVs by May 15 so that the gift can be presented at Ivy Cutting.