a note from the creator
Hello. My name is Elizabeth Rutan, and I have been a Girl Scout for eleven years. The highest award a Girl Scout can achieve is the Girl Scout Gold Award. The project addresses an issue in the community. My issue is that Vacation Bible Schools are not as common, there are not many volunteers to run the VBS, and the VBS's are very costly for most churches to put on. Many churches, my own included, have continually purchased their VBS program from a company. This type of VBS is usually spelled out in the purchased set and is very easy to do. However, many churches are in bad financial states, my church as well. These programs can cost as much as $1000 dollars a year to put on. This price isn't just from buying the program, but from obtaining all the supplies that are needed to run the program and make it a success. The Vacation Bible School that I have created and put on this website is a free program that anyone can use. Each tab has the list of stations, and each day has downloadable booklets telling you what the station is doing for that day and needs. My goal was to make the booklets as easy to read as possible to make the volunteers' job as easy as possible. One of the reasons that volunteers don't help is that a VBS can be very complicated. I wanted to change that. I have lists on each day of exactly what supplies are needed. The tabs on each this website also have detailed instructions and pictures of how to make the snack or craft or do an activity. I had many of my volunteers come to me afterwards and say that it was so easy for them to run their station because the booklet made everything so easy. I consider this a success.
Overall, I used roughly $150 to run this entire program all of which was donated by members of the congregation. Most likely, you will spend less money. Most of the snack and craft supplies that this program used were donated. A few items we had to go out and buy, but those were ones that I had forgotten to put on the lists. Now that this program is completely finished, all the supplies needed are here. With a good Congregation like mine, you will have many people donating items. This also gets the church involved! You won't have to spend a lot of money, and this resource for children will live on.
I had a lot of fun creating this project and working with the volunteers who helped make this a success. I hope you have as much fun with it as I did.
Here are a few links to my church and organizations we are affiliated with:
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church:
http://www.poplc-hamburg.org/
Lutheran Church's Missouri Synod:
https://www.lcms.org/
LCMS New Jersey District:
http://www.njdistrict.org/
Overall, I used roughly $150 to run this entire program all of which was donated by members of the congregation. Most likely, you will spend less money. Most of the snack and craft supplies that this program used were donated. A few items we had to go out and buy, but those were ones that I had forgotten to put on the lists. Now that this program is completely finished, all the supplies needed are here. With a good Congregation like mine, you will have many people donating items. This also gets the church involved! You won't have to spend a lot of money, and this resource for children will live on.
I had a lot of fun creating this project and working with the volunteers who helped make this a success. I hope you have as much fun with it as I did.
Here are a few links to my church and organizations we are affiliated with:
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church:
http://www.poplc-hamburg.org/
Lutheran Church's Missouri Synod:
https://www.lcms.org/
LCMS New Jersey District:
http://www.njdistrict.org/