At the Table
The surge runs through the public library
From Colorado to the Hudson Valley, mah jongg groups are turning weekly games into real money for local causes.
Vail Daily reports that a Vail, Colorado mah jongg group, growing alongside the game's popularity and partnered with the Vail Public Library, is working to raise $25,000 for the nonprofit Shaw at Home before rolling its giving to a next local cause. It is the kind of figure that usually comes from a gala, raised instead over folding tables.
It is not an isolated story. Per the Georgetowner, a Glen Echo, Maryland fundraiser organized by player Heather Golde raised $3,000. Public libraries have folded the game into their own fundraising as well: the Newtown Public Library in Pennsylvania has run a National Mah Jongg League card pre-sale with proceeds going to the library, and the Friends of the Poughkeepsie Public Library District in New York hold an annual mah jongg tournament fundraiser.
Taken together, these are scattered local efforts rather than one national event, but the pattern is consistent: the American game's growth is showing up in community rooms and library branches, and players are pointing the proceeds at causes close to home.
Prim's read: the table everyone is talking about is often a folding one in a library meeting room, and that may be the most telling part of the whole story. Order of the Tile is not affiliated with the groups or libraries named here.