A Better Deal for the Homeless

To the accompaniment of a blaring radio and a student announcer doing play by play, six Loyola Marymount University students sat down at noon Monday in a balloon-bedecked corner of the school’s student union building to begin a card game they hoped would last 240 hours.

By 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, 21 1/2 hours into the marathon, the announcer’s mike was long gone, balloons were fewer and cheering spectators had been replaced by a television quietly screening the movie “The Breakfast Club.” Four weary students slouched around the card table, blankets and a pillow on a bench nearby.

By noon Wednesday, a couch had been added to accommodate sleepers.

The students’ goal is to play Uno--a popular card game whose rules are loosely based on the game crazy eights--in one-hour shifts around the clock for up to 10 days. By charging students $3 an hour to play, they hope to raise $10,000 for homeless services.

The card-playing marathon is being held concurrently at eight colleges nationwide to raise about $50,000 for organizations affiliated with Comic Relief, the nonprofit group promoted by popular comedians. The event is sponsored by Mattel, Uno’s manufacturer.

Mark Gaspers and his fellow organizers have scheduled movies, deejays, pajama parties and pizza deliveries to lure late-night participants to the game. About 50 people showed up between midnight and 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, organizers said.

Wednesday night’s Greek Night drew about 80 students from fraternities and sororities to the game tables, and the proceeds reached $1,500. By Thursday afternoon, each of the dozens of videos on hand had been aired more than once, and additional sheets of butcher paper had been taped to the walls to record the dizzying number of hands played since Monday.

“We’re pretty intent on going to Sunday,” said Gaspers, the marathon’s lead organizer, who slept on the card room’s couch from 3:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday. If the students reach Sunday at noon, they will surpass the Mattel-reported record of 144 hours of continuous Uno playing.

The other universities in the competition are Fordham, Harvard, St. Louis, Stanford, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, University of Miami in Florida, and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

The beneficiary of Loyola Marymount’s marathon is Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles, a downtown facility providing drug abuse treatment programs and other services to homeless individuals and families.

“It’s great for the kids here to give something back to the community,” said Mark Casanova, executive director of the homeless center, as he contemplated signing up for a seat at the card table Monday.

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Organizers say

Colleen Davis, 19, stood by earlier this week with others who helped plan the event to make sure there were always at least four players at the table. “That’s why we’re here, to keep it going in the wee hours when people would rather be asleep,” she said.

On Tuesday morning, Nicole Carlin, 20, who had been at the marathon since 11 p.m. Monday, bravely tried to recruit a passerby. But the student said Uno wasn’t his kind of game.

“You’re not allowed to say you don’t like Uno unless you’ve been playing at least 11 hours,” retorted 19-year-old Theresa Hastert from her spot at the table.