For the past year, I have been working on a project to bring Vacation Bible Camp back to my parish. A lot of churches offer VBS & we had various summer programs for the kids on & off. I believe that a summer program is an important & valuable supplement to the regular Religious Ed program. I have been part of big projects before, but this is my first time as Director.
I got involved in 2007 when I registered 2 grandsons (both were 5 at the time) & I took a week off to volunteer & give them the opportunity to attend. The kids seemed to enjoy doing this activity & spending the week with Grandma. We did it again in 2008 & 2009. After a turnover of Religious Ed directors in 2010, we stopped having it at my parish. So I registered the grand kids (now 4 were old enough) at a neighboring parish & I volunteered there as well. In 2011, we could not find a program at any parish that worked with their busy little lives, so I did a home school version. I knew the basic format & I found lots of information online. The Theme was St. Francis of Assisi. We did Bible Stories, crafts, games, snack & music. We did a service project making a casserole for Our Daily Bread. This is when I decided that I could get VBS started again at my parish by volunteering to head it up. I also decided to be an assistant catechist for Religious Ed on Sundays.
In 2011-2012, I approached the new Religious Ed director about re-starting VBS, but it was put on the back burner for 2012. So I volunteered at another parish again, with the intention of learning as much as I could about presenting the program as a whole, not just volunteering for a small part. Basically, I was a VBS Director in training. I was also asked to make a proposal for the pastor & the parish council to have it in 2013. I did a lot of research, building on what I had learned from doing the home school VBS program the year before. I compared the various program kit packages available for cost & content, looked at volunteer needs, space needs, participant cost, etc. The proposal was accepted providing I could get the volunteers needed. So I started promoting the idea with a volunteer table at the monthly fellowship in Sept. 2012 ( & almost every month thereafter). In Nov, the Knights of Columbus approached me & offered to help by purchasing the program kit. We had a spot in the bulletin almost weekly to generate interest & recruit volunteers.
In April, I held the first volunteer meeting & we set dates, the registration fee & deadline, and got a few of the volunteer assignments in place. Registration forms went home with the Religious Ed kids & the parish school kids, and continued to have announcements in the bulletin. I visited the Middle school youth group to ask for youth volunteers & made a few crafts from the program kit to display at fellowship. At the last fellowship in May, we set up a "giving tree", with pictures of each craft & snack item & a list of supplies needed. Then we moved the giving tree to the back of the church & the priest mentioned it in the announcements. I also visited the high school youth group to ask for youth volunteers.
Donations of craft supplies & snack items are coming in from the giving tree & I held the second volunteer meeting in June. We closed registration with a total of 30 campers, 8 youth assistants & 20+ adult volunteers. We were expecting more campers - had set the limit at 50. Not sure why we did not get more except for the usual reasons: Catholics don't do VBS as well as Protestants, day program vs evening program (ours is day) & later in the summer vs early in the summer (ours is later), and/or we closed registration too soon (our deadline was 6 weeks before the event). With 30 campers, we can focus on quality rather than quantity. I decided that if anyone called me, I would accept more registrations up until 30 days before the event, but no last minute registrations.
I have a great team, but I think I am not delegating enough. I collected the donated items & inventoried them. In the process I made a few sample crafts, but I am ready to hand the craft bin over to the craft leader. I have been listening to the music CD on my way to & from work & I know all of the songs. Because I am a music oriented person, I will be helping with that station, unless I can find someone else. I can read music & peck out a tune on the piano, but that is the extent of my abilities. I would like to find someone who can play guitar. I delegated the decorations. I made some paper mache hats for the leaders & I have a few signs & posters made from the kit for decorations, but I told each station leader that the decorations could be as simple or creative as they wanted. I know it is difficult for people with busy lives to attend a lot of volunteer meeting, so I communicate a lot by e-mail.
Now this project is kicking into high gear. During the next 5 weeks we have a lot to do. Parent letters go out this week. T-shirt orders next week. Youth training for volunteer assignments & skit practice the week after 4th of July. Volunteer meeting & shopping 2 weeks before event, & decorating 1 week before event. Overall, I have been amazed by how well the planning & now the preparation have unfolded. It has been very helpful to follow the timeline suggested in the kit. This leadership experience has been awesome.
