Vashon’s senior center has joined a growing number of centers in the area making Jello shots and drag queens synonymous with bingo. Representing a drastic departure from any preconceived notions about the classic game, Rainbow Bingo offers a chance for anyone age 21 or older to eat, drink, laugh and play bingo while winning money and raising it for the center.

“There’s nothing dull about it,” Aunt Betty, the drag queen who hosted Vashon Senior Center’s Spooktacular Rainbow Bingo event on Saturday, said. “Senior bingo used to be very boring, but that was before the Boomers got old.”

Indeed in television shows and movies, bingo halls are portrayed as dark, bland spaces filled with drawn, sad and dull seniors. Hearing aids squeal and numbers are repeated and repeated by a character with a monotone voice. For example, in Sony Pictures’ 2012 movie “Hotel Transylvania,” a scene portrays vacationing monsters in a bingo hall. Backed by a muted classical soundtrack, the 25-second scene features a slow-moving, shaky-voiced caller. But the times scenes like that one are based on are in the past, according to Betty, as the Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are a whole new breed of senior.

“They went to Woodstock. They’re not delicate flowers,” Betty said, explaining that she can even break the rule of never talking about politics with Boomer seniors. “They’re throwing back Jello shots, they’re drinking. It’s just fun.”

It’s also popular. Saturday’s Spooktacular event sold out, and seven of the eight other Rainbow Bingo nights the center has held since the first event last September have also sold out with up to 60 people — the capacity of the center — filling the three long tables. And the age of the attendees “run the gamut,” according to Vashon Senior Center Executive Director Ava Apple. At Saturday’s event, there were bingo players in their 20s who were attending with a grandparent and many middle-aged islanders. And while she couldn’t be there Saturday, 100-year-old senior center member Louella Lodahl is a regular participant and assists the drag queen host on most occasions, both Betty and Apple said.

“Everybody’s inner child comes out,” Apple said. “When someone wins and it’s verified, everyone crunches up their cards and throws them at each other. It’s just a blast.”

Throw in $1 Jello shots, beer, wine, nachos and popcorn and the night could be more reminiscent of the Saturday nights of college than anything many would expect to find at a senior center.

But the event isn’t just an opportunity for fun, friendly competition. It is also a fundraiser for the center. Apple said the events usually net around $1,000 each, “a nice chunk of change” from an event that takes many volunteer hours. Money is raised in various ways throughout the night: admission is $20 for 10 games that pay $25 each to winners, two bonus games can be bought for $2 each that pay $50 to winners, and raffle tickets sold at the beginning of the night enter purchasers into a drawing for a cash prize gathered from donations — Saturday’s exceeded $200 — that is split with the center.

For Betty, she said the most important part of the night is to “punch up” the fun beyond what anyone would think.

With a loud performance personality, Betty calls on a theater background for the character and prides herself on the fact that she doesn’t lip sync, but actually sings. From the time she stepped into the room clad in a tight black dress, towering black heels and a red and black wig and began selling raffle tickets, it was clear that any pre-conceived bingo notions should be checked with raincoats at the door. She opened Saturday’s bingo night with a cheeky rendition of Blondie’s “One Way or Another” before starting the game play with a “virgin run,” where first-time Rainbow Bingo players gathered cash from other players by running up and down the aisles between tables. That cash went into the pot to be raffled off.

From there, bingo play began and regulars Helene Robertson and her wife, Cathy Airola, became some of the most vocal at the event as they whooped and hollered along with Betty.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Robertson said. “It gives you a chance to be silly.”

They’ve been attending Rainbow Bingo events for many years at West Seattle’s senior center, and played a large part in bringing it to Vashon. Robertson, a Seattle resident, served on the board at the West Seattle Senior Center for seven years and saw Rainbow Bingo take off. But she recently began coming to Vashon’s center as Airola lives on the island, and the two share a home here. Robertson joined Vashon Senior Center’s Fun and Fund committee and learned that Apple had always dreamed of bringing Rainbow Bingo to the island.

“There were three of us who sat down and said, ‘Let’s do bingo because it’s a great fundraiser’ and we talked about the first Rainbow Bingo,” Apple said.

She said she used to attend the Chicken Soup Brigade’s “Gay Bingo” events in Seattle in the 1990s, and the events would constantly grow out of their spaces.

“They ended up in a huge warehouse in Fremont,” Apple recalled. “Bingo was always a goal (for the center).”

She secured a gambling license and liquor license and began Rainbow Bingo in September 2016 with Betty and her colleague Sylvia O’Stayformore as callers. The center is the ninth in the area offering the event. West Seattle, Ballard, Columbia City, Carnation, South Park, Mount Si and Whidbey Island have all been drinking the Rainbow Bingo Kool-Aid — ahem, Jello — to wild success. October events at Ballard, Vashon and West Seattle have all sold out.

For Apple, while the event is “a fabulously fun fundraiser,” it serves as a way to introduce new islanders to the center.

“Even more importantly it exposes the senior center to islanders who have never been here,” she said. “Bingo goers are often surprised by how dynamic and energetic the senior center is. Since half of Vashon Island’s population is over 50, I think of us as a community center more than a traditional senior center.”