Most churches commit a set amount of their children’s ministry budget to pay for vacation bible school. The main expenses are VBS curriculum, craft supplies, advertising, and decorations. But this year, many smaller churches are facing hard times and mid-year budget cuts. How will they afford Vacation Bible School material?
I just found a few new Vacation Bible School ideas on the Guildcraft VBS blog. Their post is titled Budget-saving ideas for VBS and offers some good advice. Like all things VBS, starting early makes much more possible. Now is the time to stretch the budget.
Need more ideas? Check out my post doing Vacation Bible School On A Tiny Budget or my other practical help for Vacation Bible School articles.
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thank you very much for the tips of vbs its really fun. and a big help to the children to draw closer to God.
I know this is probably way late, but maybe will help someone for 2010.
Last year was my first year in charge of VBS with only having volunteered the previous year, so this was all new to me. After much deliberation and not knowing where to even start, VBS ended up being a bit last minute – even for me by the time everything was nailed down – BUT – it worked out wonderfully and we got a lot of positive comments.
We did Augsburgs Discovery Canyon – Crafts were from Oriental Trading – and I found a lot of ideas etc from going to the forums tied to the particular VBS. I also lucked out by ending up having our VBS so late in the season (3rd week of August) I was able to pick up a lot of our curriculum and advertising things used from other churches who had done the program earlier in the summer and had leftovers or gently used teacher guides. It was a wonderful way to meet the budget and all said and done (snacks were donated by the congregation – games were choice of game leader) Crafts, lesson guides, skits, decorations, and the whole ball of wax came in at under $250 for 40 children. HALF of our enrollment each day was children from the community and were non-members of our church. We have seen a few back visiting SS this fall too.
We were able to make up our own “puppet ministry” for each day (Augsburg had animals for each day) – the puppets didn’t cost anything either – I checked with the local library on recommendation of a teacher friend and was able to check out a “story-time” box filled with LARGE puppets of each of the animals for the week.
Just my $0.02 and hopefully something in here will help another group meet their budget in the future.