I was able to volunteer my time at our parish's Vacation Bible School which took place over one week from 9am -12 noon daily for 100 kids. I joined about 9 other adults and 30 teens to put on a program that we purchased called "A Radical Ride on the Wings of Prayer".
We started to meet in May to prepare for it and our Director was a truly organized professional. She really knew how to lead a business meeting and I learned a lot from her. Like in years past, The Cat Chat program we used had five stations for the children to rotate through- Faith, Music, Crafts, Games and Snacks. There was an opening and closing assembly daily that featured a short teaching, skits, singing and dancing.
I was assigned the Snack station which I did last year and really enjoyed. The guidebook gave detailed directions about what snack to serve with pictures and a scripted way to pull the snack into the daily theme. I shopped ahead of time for non-perishables and almost daily to purchase the fruits and vegetables used throughout this incredibly busy week.
We purchased the food and craft supplies with money donated by generous parishioners for this purpose. Each child paid only 10 dollars for the whole week.
Food allergies were something that we paid close attention to! Gluten, peanuts, strawberries, dairy and fruits were some things that individuals had to avoid and we made substitutions for those items for those children. Special nametags with a color coded dot helped to keep that straight and the fantastic teens that I worked with on a daily basis in my station and the "age group" teen leaders were also a huge help in keeping these children safe.
I had about eight teens that worked in the kitchen with me to prepare a boatload of food in the morning and serve it to the youngsters as each class came in for a 25 minute session. On Pizza Bun day, the boys made pizzas and the girls acted like waitresses for tables of about twenty kids per class.
The adults made a very special effort to treat our teen helpers with RESPECT. I prayed every morning that I might be able to Lead them and not Boss them. We were all well aware that these teens make this event possible and that they are the future of our church. Many teens come back year after year to help with VBS because it is so rewarding and a lot of fun to volunteer with lots of other young people for a week every summer. Eighth Graders volunteer to get their Confirmation hours and then return because they want to!
Each day I also led a game for the kids after their snack. The book gave some suggestions and we used some from last year that they really liked. One new game that I learned from this was "Bird, Box and Worm. This is just like "Rock, Paper, Scissors and the other version that we played " The Bear, The Hunter and The Lady." The bird eats the worm, the box traps the bird and the worm crawls out of the box to win.
It was a lot of hard work but it was worth it because four of my children worked it daily with me. Sam played the drums in the Music room, Natalie led the Third graders through their rotation each day and John was the official Time Keeper, giving each station a five minute warning and then ringing the bell when it was time to switch all morning. Miss J. was a participant.We left the house at 7:30 am and returned each day between 2 and 3pm, exhausted. I am trying to pass the faith onto my own children primarily!
Each VBS participant received a CD of all the songs they learned and by the end of the week they had memorized the choreography that goes with each song. It was pretty cute to see our kids singing and dancing for their Dad when they showed him what we had been doing all week! Before VBS this time, I was thinking that I wouldn't sign up again to help next summer but by the end of the week, I had changed my mind!
