Recycling VBS Curriculum

[Jon Twitchell]

What does your church do with your VBS curriculum when you are finished?

This year, we did Group's "Jerusalem Marketplace," which is part of their "HolyLand Adventure" series. We bought most of the supplies, but inherited a handful of things from my home church which had done a similar program the year before.

We had a variety of leftover supplies, and were able to arrange for them to go to El Salvador to be used in a children's ministry program there. The lady who I'm sending them to sent me some great pictures of their kids using donated materials last year.

I'm already in the process of securing items for our VBS next year as well. Group publishing actually encourages this sort of partnership and reuse, by including a section on their website for people to discuss buying, selling, or donating of used VBS curriculum.

(Please note... I'm not intending this thread to get sidetracked into a discussion about the pros/cons of using NPH VBS curriculum. :) This is more about what to do with stuff that you buy and are done using. None of us like to throw it away, and the internet creates a means to extend the life of some products.)

[Cindi Hammons]

At our old church, we did Group's Marketplace as well. It was a huge success. I don't remember us having a ton of leftover stuff, because we created most of it ourselves from things we had (that doesn't include the donkey, chickens, and other small animals we borrowed). Other years, we were able to beg, borrow, and steal (not really) things from other churches which helped us financially be able to afford doing a decent VBS. I think sharing is a fantastic idea.

We also liberally used Group's publications for our children's church. They are fantastic.

[Donna Adams]

Find a smaller church that cannot afford VBS materials and ask if they would want it. VBS can be done anytime during the year, adapted to fit Sunday morning, or Wednesday nights.

[Alisa Stoll]

Our community has a fellowship for children's pastors and there have been times in the past that another denomination was using the same curriculum that we were but later in the summer. All the decorative stuff would be passed on to that church instead of being thrown away.

Alisa