Send Us Your Great Ideas
and Join The Saint Circle . . .

Sometimes, planning a VBS can seem like a complicated maze. We don’t think it should be. Even though we offer several suggestions for planning your VBS in our VBS Kit, we like to get feedback from all of you out in the field. Our DREs, VBS Coordinators and Volunteers have fantastic ideas for implementing our Totally Catholic VBS Programs! We want to share their ideas with you to help with planning your own Growing with the Saints VBS. Share a great idea! Please send it to Susan Lawson: ideas@growingwiththesaints.com Join the Circle! We would love to hear from you! It's FREE, It's EASY, No SIGN-UP, just e-mail us.

Concept Ideas:

Concept
Assorted Saints and the Virtues of Faith, Hope & Love
Passport Around the World
In general, I wanted you to know that this year's VBS was a great success! All the kids absolutely loved learning about the different saints. We used an "around the world in 5 days" idea and built a plane (it was really more like a tent, but we encouraged the kids to use their imagination). The kids would "ride" on it every morning to the country the saint was from. Each child had their own passport and would receive a sticker with a picture of the saint and the date to put in their passport. Our plane had real airplane sound effects and we even had a real live pilot (a retired pilot who is a parishioner) "fly" the plane every day. It was a really great week for the kids- everyone had a fantastic time! Thanks for a great curriculum and your ideas and ENTHUSIASM. We never could have been successful without the great work you and your colleagues have done!

God bless you, Porzia DiGiorgio

Concept
St. Patrick and the Holy Trinity
Celtic Dancers
Invite Celtic Dancers who are in your community to perform for the children.

Source Unknown – if this is your fabulous tip, please let us know.

Concept
St. Patrick and the Holy Trinity
Storyteller
Ask your priest or story narrator to dress up as St. Patrick and narrate the storybook to the children.

Donna Tomasini, DRE

Concept
St. Patrick and the Holy Trinity
St. Patrick Procession
Ask your priest to dress up as St. Patrick at Mass. Arrange to have the children walk in with their Mitre hats on singing "Me Name is Bishop Patrick." The Priest can hand out St. Patrick medals/Holy Cards after Mass to the children.

Source Unknown – if this is your fabulous tip, please let us know.

Concept
St. Patrick and the Holy Trinity
Pet a Snake – Eeeeeeew!
Invite the Petting Zoo to VBS (be sure to include the SNAKES) because it is said St. Patrick chased all the snakes (evil) out of Ireland. This is a great end of the week Field Day activity.

Angie Harber, VBS Coordinator

Concept
St. Patrick and the Holy Trinity
Daily Memory Necklaces
Pre-K teachers made a cut out from green construction paper for each day’s theme and wrote the bible memory verse on it for the kids. They attached yarn to the shapes and the kids wore them all day and home as necklaces. Example: An earth for God the Father, Creator; Heart for Jesus (He loves us.), Dove for Holy Spirit, Shamrock for Trinity, Shepherd’s Staff for Missionary Day.

Cathy Roach, DRE & Jennie Lane, VBS Coordinator

Concept
All-Programs
Progressive Coin Service Project
We raised money for a local house opening for unwed mothers. Each day the children brought in money: Mon-pennies, Tues-nickels, Wed-dimes, Thurs-quarters and Fri-dollars. We raised over $1000.00 for the home and also filled a cradle full of baby clothes, diapers, wipes, bottles, etc. It was AMAZING!!!!

Allison Gleich, VBS Coordinator & Rel. Ed. Teacher

Concept
All Programs
Super Celebration
We have never had a closing ceremony and were very nervous about doing it, but God provided and it was great! We had a pot luck dinner and almost all the VBS children came. WE had a slide show presentation of the week for the families to see what we did, games, prizes and a local restaurant came by with free dinner certificates for the children and a dancing bee!!!! I am still amazed at how wonderful it was.

Allison Gleich, VBS Coordinator & Rel. Ed. Teacher

Concept
Sunday Classes
I did purchase your VBS program last year but instead of using over the summer for VBS... we have been using portions of it in our regular Sunday classes.  Also, I loved the play so much that I am using it (slightly modified to delete the VBS comments) and our Sr. High CYM group is performing it for our parents... I will take loads of pictures and send you some! Thanks for all your hard work...love the programs and am looking forward to the next one.

Evelyn Ferreira, CRE