“I’m kind of addicted to playing Facebook Scrabble,” confesses Beth Yockey Jones as she helps put the Scrabble boards away on a cold recent evening. “I’m very competitive.”Jones isn’t just a regular at the Skylark’s regular Monday Scrabble Night; she’s a bit of a shark. With the event in only its second month, it still isn’t drawing a lot of hardcore players. The first time Jones sat down with her seven tiles, she finished in first “by a huge margin.” She won a coffee gift card. But high stakes and big prizes aren't the primary purpose of the tourneys. The $5 entry fee goes to local charities. On a recent Monday, Community Harvest, a nonprofit that collects your extra home-grown produce and distributes it to food banks, was the beneficiary. Jones sits on the Community Harvest board and says it was a smaller night for the organization thanks to a very big football game and the threat of snow. But as the tourneys grow, so, too, will the cash hauls for worthy causes. And as a side benefit, Jones might get herself some real competition. LAURA ONSTOT
