Messiah Lutheran Church - Vacation Bible School

Vacation Bible School

VBS Vacation Bible School (VBS) is for children ages 3 through those going into 6th grade. This fun-filled week weaves music, Bible Stories, drama, small group discussions and prayer, snacks, and recreation into an awesome experience of learning about God's love in Jesus! Adults and students, beginning with those going into 7th grade, are encouraged to volunteer as small group or station leaders. Each year, VBS is from 9AM to Noon on Monday through Friday during the week before Father's Day.

VBS 2010: June 14th - 18th, 9am - 12 noon

Registration is now available!! Click HERE to register. The cost is $18 per child up to 3 children, then $4 for the 4th child and up. All children must be in the same family to receive discounted fees.

Early registration helps us keep costs down - please register your child early! After June 6th the registration fee will be $25 per child.

VBS volunteer positions:

Crew Leaders:

# of people needed: 80
Age Requirements: Young people going into 7th grade and older, and also adults.
Responsibilities: A Crew leader is assigned a group of 5 – 7 children, and they are responsible to walk their children to each of the stations, and help them participate in the instructions that each station leader gives them.

Station Leaders:

# of people needed: 10
Age requirements: adults.
Responsibilities: This involves planning a 20 – 25 minute session for each day. You will repeat this session 4 times each day, for each traveling group that comes through your station. You will receive the station plans, and you may decide to use the plans as written, or modify them to suit your station. You would give Renee Borgmann a list of supplies that you need for your station, and then plan how to present the session to the children. We also ask you to decorate your station room – Renee can provide the materials. We would need a total of 10 station leaders. We could also have co-leaders for a station to help with the work load if you prefer.

Elementary stations:

Chadder
Crafts – (we need 2 leaders for this station – we may split the kids into 2 rooms)
Games
Bible story

Preschool Stations:

Chadder
Crafts – (we need 2 leaders for this station – we may split the kids into 2 rooms)
Games
Bible story

Station Assistants:

# of people needed: 10 – 15
Age requirements: young people going into 7th grade and older, and also adults.
Responsibilities: A station assistant may or may not help in the planning – that’s up to you and your station leader. The station assistant is available during VBS to help distribute materials, give an extra hand to the Station leader, and help out where needed.

Decorations:

# of people needed: one leader, 5 – 7 helpers
Age requirements: adult leader, helpers can be young people from middle school age and up, and adults
Responsibilities: we need several people for this job – to plan the decorations for the stage area in the elementary large group room and the preschool large group room, collect materials, and do the set-up. Also to plan decorations for the church entrance hallway, the Commons, and the hallways and coordinate the set-up

Snack:

# of people needed: one leader, 6-7 helpers
Age requirements: adult leader, helpers can be young people from 7th grade and up and also adults
Responsibilities: the leader plans the snack for each day – they may use the suggested snacks in the VBS materials, or modify to suit our needs. Give a list of food needed to Renee – we will put some on the donation board and purchase some ourselves. The leader and helpers may need to prepare some of the food in advance of VBS week, and then be available the week of VBS to prepare snack each day, serve 2 sessions of children and their crew leaders – about 300 in each session, and then clean up the kitchen area afterwards.

Photography:

# of people needed: 2-3
Age requirements: high school age and up, adults
Responsibilities: take pictures throughout the week of various activities in each station, and openings and closings, take pictures of kids and groups of kids having fun, take a picture of each child to use for our picture frame craft project.

Child care:

# of people needed: one leader, 3-4 helpers
Age requirements: 7th grade and up, adults
Responsibilities: care for the young children ages 0 – 2 of the VBS volunteers from 8:30 – 12:00. Plan activities for the children to do, set up the room beforehand, plan snacks to serve, etc.

VBS store & café:

# of people needed: 2-4
Age requirements: at least 2 adults, possibly 7th grade & up for helpers
Responsibilities: select items to feature in the store, give list of items to Renee to order if needed, set up the store, set prices, and be there during store hours to sell lunch tickets and store items. Set lunch menu, give Renee list of food supplies to get. Keep track of which items are in the store, which items sold, and for how much. Store hours are 8:30 – 9:30am, and 11:30am – 12:30pm. During the times that the store is closed, prep the lunch items to be sold. Coordinate with the snack team what kind of kitchen space you need to prepare the lunch. Determine a good procedure to sell and collect lunch tickets. One adult will need to distribute lunches in the Commons area each day at 12:00, one adult will need to be in the store in the Information Center.

Tshirts:

# of people needed: 3-4
Age requirements: adults
Responsibilities: this year our goal is to order t-shirts for the kids that have been screen printed with our design. The t-shirt people will need to select the company to use, select the design, determine from past numbers the number to order for this year, order the t-shirts, and once they come in, sort and group for distributing to each small group. Also, iron on the logo for the crew leader and other volunteer t-shirts.

Station Director:

# of people needed: 1
Age requirements: adult
Responsibilities: assist the station leaders, communicate with them prior to the week of VBS to identify needs, help with questions during the planning phase, be available during the week of VBS to check in with the stations and get extra supplies as needed, provide extra help as needed.

Volunteer hospitality:

# of people needed: 2-3
Age requirements: adult
Responsibilities: provide snacks and drinks for the volunteer staff each day. (as low cost as possible – this means homemade!) Give a shopping list to Renee. Help with preparing and distributing the volunteer gifts at the end of the week.

Crew Leader supplies:

# of people needed: 2-3
Age requirements: adult and possibly young person helper
Responsibilities: assemble crew folders for each day (there are a number of papers that need to be placed in each folder – and we have a total of 80 or so crews!), assemble items to put in crew bags for the Monday of VBS. This is a job that needs to be done entirely prior to the start of VBS, you may begin immediately, and work on it as you have time in your schedule. Assemble nametags and have them ready to put nametag labels on.

Registration:

# of people needed: one leader, 3-4 helpers
Age requirements: adult
Responsibilities: the majority of the work will be done before the week of VBS.

The leader will set up the spread sheets and collect registration information as it comes in.
Communicate with Bernice to record online payments, and turn in to Bernice any payments made by check or cash.
Keep track of which children have paid and which have not.
Put kids in crews according to preferences listed on their registration forms.
Set up lists of which kids are in which crews, and prepare for last minute registrations on Monday morning.
Give list of kids and t-shirt sizes to the t-shirt person.
Make signs directing people to registration & set up a registration table for Monday morning to take payments and register new kids.
Make nametag labels and give to crew leader supply person.
Make allergy labels for the back of nametags as needed – give to crew leader supply person
Make attendance sheet for each crew and give to crew leader supply person.
Display alphabetical list of kids and which crew they are in for Monday morning – we’ll need about 7 copies on clipboards and another 4 copies to be posted at entrances.
Recruit about 7 people to be greeters on Monday morning to help kids find the crew that they belong in.

Music:

# of people needed: 2
Age requirements: adult
Responsibilities: We need one music leader for the preschool opening and closing, and one for the elementary opening and closing. Each may recruit 5th and 6th graders to serve as song leaders. Recruit skit actors or skit puppet people for opening and closing. Train helpers on songs or skits that they will be doing. Learn the music and prepare how best to teach. Work with the AV person on what is needed in the line of visuals, DVDs, and sound system.

AV person:

# of people needed: 2
Age requirements: high school or older – need to be familiar with computers and Messiah’s sound board.
Responsibilities: be available during opening and closing to run the videos or sound as needed, be available to put together power points as needed.