Decorated bowling pins that were submitted to Maple Family Centers’ pin contest.
Photo courtesy of Maple Family Centers
The Maple Family Centers held its inaugural Holiday Pin Decorating Contest across its five family-owned bowling alleys in New York and Florida, including Jib Lanes at 67-19 Parsons Blvd. in Flushing.
From Thanksgiving week to New Year’s Eve, thousands of free pins were distributed by the five bowling centers to bowlers and community groups upon request. Those who received the pins painted and decorated them before entering their creations in a contest. In order to enter, participants had to upload a photo of the pins they decorated before the New Year’s Eve deadline passed.
Acrylic paint, collage, and décollage were mainly used to decorate the pins by those who took part in the contest. Approximately three-quarters of the entries had holiday themes, including snowmen, nutcrackers and Christmas trees.
“One of our bowlers, who is a genuine artist, created a ‘storm’ theme that featured the logo of Storm, which is one of the largest bowling ball manufacturers,” Maple Vice President Joe LaSpina said. “He gave it to us to present to the owner of Storm as a holiday gift.”
Maple Family Centers replaces the pins at its bowling alleys with new ones each year. The Holiday Pin and Decorating Contest made for a fun and creative way to involve the local communities in this.
“We were amazed by the community’s response,” Maple Family Centers Director of Community Outreach Teresa McCarthy said. “Libraries, schools and numerous Girl Scout troops requested pins so they could decorate them as a craft project. We dropped off a bunch for the Long Beach Public Library’s kids’ programs, and then they requested more for the adults.”
Many Long Island schools requested several of the pins for art projects. These included Baldwin High School, Charles E. Walters Elementary School in Yaphank, Coram Elementary School, Hempstead High School, Holy Angels Regional School in Patchogue, Lynbrook High School, Marion High School in Lynbrook, the Long Beach Special Education Program, and Ridge Elementary School.
“We were thrilled that so many bowlers, as well as schools and community groups, wanted to join in the fun and create decorative bowling pins,” McCarthy said. “Since we regularly upcycle pins, we plan to continue this project in the future.”We received a lot of amazing entries, which made it very difficult to select the winners.”
An adult and youth under 18 years of age were each chosen as winners across all five Maple Family Centers locations. The winners received a free Family Fun Pack, which included two games of bowling and shoe rentals for as many as eight people. Additionally, everyone who took part in the contest received a coupon for a free game of bowling.
In addition to Jib Lanes in Flushing, Maple Family Centers also has owns and operates Maple Lanes RVC in Rockville Centre and Coram Country Lanes in Coram, both on Long Island, and Maple Lanes Countryside in Clearwater, Florida, and Maple Lanes Lakeland in Lakeland, Florida. Thousands of pins are used each year across the five locations.
“We used to sell back old pins to a company that would refurbish them and/or redesign them into ‘Happy Birthday’ pins, some of which we would hand out at our bowling centers,” LaSpina said. “But that company went out of business during COVID, and we had several years’ worth of used pins – maybe about 10,000 – sitting in inventory.”