On Saturday, March 15, 2025, “Womanizer” by Britney Spears came bursting from the Clinton Town Hall as Morgan Project Graduation hosted their annual Drag Queen Bingo night. This is the second Drag Queen Bingo night that
Morgan Project Grad has held; the first was back on November 9, 2024. Project Grad invited the Darling Divas of Connecticut to host the bingo night. Darling Divas are a local drag queen group that travels around Connecticut, performing at different events.
Morgan’s Project Graduation is the longest-running Project Grad program on the shoreline. It was started back in 1989 and run by the parents and guardians of the graduating seniors. They do various fundraising activities to raise money for a safe post-graduation celebration for the seniors. Their mission is to keep the newest Morgan alumni safe on graduation night. The group spends roughly $250 per student, and after purchasing yard signs, insurance, and buses for the trip, the total ends up being over $30,000. Project Graduation is not a
school-sanctioned event, but rather an independent group, and this event was not affiliated with The Morgan School.
Both of the Drag Queen Bingo events were run by Meredith Farr, a member of the Project Graduation group. She says organizing the first bingo night in November was a learning process, but the second in March was a breeze. After contacting the Clinton Town Hall and booking the room, “I had to attend a Town Hall Board meeting to request having bingo be an event that could be a BYOB. It had to be approved by the board one month prior to booked event.” Not only that, but roughly 170 people were attending the event, and the town hall did not have enough chairs, so Farr had to get in contact with the Clinton Volunteer Fire Department to discuss borrowing chairs and tables from them.
Additionally, because of the popularity of the event, the layout of the room also had to be approved by the fire marshal, so Farr got in contact with him to be sure that happened. Farr says ticket sales were more successful at in-person booths that were held at the Clinton Police Department and behind the Town Hall, rather than online through Facebook, saying it was easier to keep track of the in-person sales. According to Farr, the Divas were the easiest part of the process, “[you] tell them the date and start time, and they’re there.” Additionally, 100% of the tips made by the Darling Divas went back to the event.
During the event, there was a competition for table decorating. Everyone brought their own supplies and decorations, and all the tables went out. There were tables with tablecloths and banners, and some groups even coordinated their outfits to their tables.
Morgan teacher, Mrs. Shook, was there with a group of friends and family. Shook saw the advertisement for the event on the All Things Clinton page on Facebook. It caught her interest because she has always loved bingo and has always wanted to attend a drag queen bingo event. “I also try to support the school and graduating class as much as I can.”
Shook always tries to support the graduating class, from buying cards from soccer to donating gift certificates to Project Grad. Shook’s group decorated their table with a Saint Patrick’s Day theme, “rainbow tablecloth, little pots of gold coins, and my friend, Leah, made a pot of gold/rainbow centerpiece. We all tried to dress in a variety of colors and wore rainbow headbands and boas,” said Shook. She says she had a great time. There were three bingo winners at her table, and they all can’t wait until the next event like this one. Shook mentioned how happily surprised they were that the event was held in the town hall and Clinton was so welcoming.
However, not everyone was happy about the Drag experience. On February 23, Marten Brown, an All-Star contributor on the public All Things Clinton Facebook page, posted an advertisement for Drag Queen Bingo. His caption to the post was informational, yet slightly backhanded towards the people who aren’t fans of Drag. Attached to the post was the flyer for the bingo night. Brown also tagged the member of Project Grad who is running the event, Meredith Farr. There were about 220 comments on the post, most of them were people complaining about the event, calling it “disgusting” and not something that should be school-related. The other half were people defending the event and telling those complaining to knock it off. The volunteer leaders running the Project Grad Facebook page also received comments from people complaining about the event and decided it would be best to turn off the comments to avoid the negativity. Bethany Howard, a member of Project Grad who directly posted about the event, received a couple of complaint messages through her Facebook account. Because Facebook groups can’t post in other groups, Clinton community members posted in the All Things Clinton page, and a few of them received backlash in the comments.
Included in the mess of comments is one that reads, “This is exactly what’s wrong with the country! I thought Clinton was above this. If this is how desperate we are to raise money, we shouldn’t allow children in.” Included in the post and flyer, it is mentioned that this event is for people 21 years and older, because there will be alcohol. The event was “Bring Your Own Beverages” and snacks.
Sprinkled among the hate comments, there were comments poking fun at the people complaining, including ones like “Before Facebook, it was universally accepted that every village had just one idiot. The comments on this post are evidence that we were all wrong.” and “So many grown men need their Depends changed in these comments.”
Despite the controversy online, the event was a huge success. Morgan Project Graduation raised over $6,000 at each Drag Bingo Night. Project Grad has a couple fundraisers planned for the next couple weeks, including a Register Round Up at Ace Hardware in Clinton, and they will also be auctioning front row seats and VIP parking at the Morgan Graduation.
