How Do You Collect a VBS Offering?
We want to hear how you get your kids involved in helping to collect an offering during VBS. We know many of our own churches make the offering a competition between boys and girls or each grade to see who can bring the most. Some churches set a goal and if that offering goal is met, then the pastor or other staff member gets a pie in their face! It is also great to hear stories from churches who do not take up money as an offering, but collect school supplies, canned food, and so forth for a local ministry. There are so many options out there, but the most important thing is getting your kids involved. We would love to hear how you do this!
For a little incentive, we want to have a giveaway! We will pick one winner from our comments and send you five Agency D3 bags from our Preview events. Can’t wait to hear your stories!
We make it a competition between the boys and the girls on who can bring the most pennies. Everyday we start with a fresh empty pail and we go around collecting and then we weigh them so everyday there either the boys when for the day or the girls when. The last day of vbs is always the funniest. Normally for the past couple of years its always tied 2-2 and everyone is excited to see who gets bragging rights for the year. This year it was the girls 🙂 all together the kids brought in $440 worth of pennies to send to our missionary and we only averaged 30 kids everyday give or take a few. Not bad for a small group of kids.
We have 5-gallon buckets in the back, and each offering day is a contest. On one day, we have a “Boys” sign on one bucket and “Girls” on the other. The kids drop their offering in the correct bucket, and we see who “wins” at the end of the day. Our other contests are Older vs. Younger, Boys vs. Girls II, and Kids vs. Adults.
We collect pennies on day one, nickels on day two, etc.
It’s boys vs girls. We have a volunteer adult of each gender to represent for the last day. And the winning gender gets to pie an adult volunteer of the opposite gender.
The kids love it!
The money raised goes to a mission that our church is involved in. Different ones each year.
Everyday of the week we picked up offering , and made a poster girls vs boys . If the one of the teams lose the children’s pastors would get a pie on their face ! My husband and I are the children’s pastors , I got to throw pie on his face because the girls won !
We wanted to encourage our to give, so we changed up what we’ve done in the past. We moved the offering collection out of the missions rooms and into the worship rally. As part of the rally each morning, the kids were invited up on the set where we had incorporated our collection containers in to set. Just like the rest of our decorations, we dug through the rescource room and repurposed! Lifeway poster tubes work great! I added some decorative tape to stripe them and then special metal caps and bases to help it fit in. It made loud clanks as the kids poured in their baggies full of coins! We had a boys vs. girls competition. If the boy’s team won, they would get to throw a pie at our children’s director, and if they boys won, the Pastor. In 3 days of giving, we raised approximately $350 to go towards the Lolo people group we just adopted. We held the pie in the face competition at Family Night on Thursday evening. The kids had to come to find out which team won, and then we drew the kids’ names to see who got to throw the pie. With a small additional donation, it ended up being a tie and both got pied! The kids went crazy and loved it! They talked about it all week long. It has continued post vbs and they are really excited about giving!
We have red and blue buckets! Boys v/s girls and we have collection boxes in the back for service project items such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap etc. we find the boys v/s girls is the only incentive our kids need to bring in there offerings! But the winners just might get to do something silly like throw a pie in someone’s face or put makeup on the youth pastor! Lol
Every year we hold a offering contest. We hold true to an old tradition of boys vs. girls. The offering is set up on a lever that has two buckets with one on each end. The competitors that have the heaviest bucket on their end win the challenge.
We usually change it from year to year depending upon what the mission project is. One year we promised the kids that if they made our goal, the pastors would kiss a goat. This year, going with a detective theme, we had pictures of our mission project hidden behind post-it notes. For every $5 the kids brought, we took off a post-it note and revealed part of the picture. They really enjoyed this too.
We always make it a competition between the girls and the boys. We use something theme related to collect the money. This year we used two of the briefcases that the leaders pack came in. As they march out of the opening session each night to go to their classrooms for bible study, they drop their change into the correct container. When we meet back up for our closing review each night, we put the totals on the screen and the kids go wild. We add each nights total, so they know who collected the most each night, and who collected the most over the entire week.
Girls verses boys. If girls win a male staff gets pied if boys win a female staff gets pied. Doing this has tripled our offering. We collect for Margret Lackey Mississippi state missions offering.
Boys vs girls penny offering. Loosing representative takes a pie to the face on family night.
This year we had two large buckets, one pink and one blue at the entrance to the sanctuary. At the end of every day we counted the offering and if the boys won I got a pie in the face, or if the girls won, our male pastor got the pie! We set a goal of $500 that if they reached we would BOTH take a pie. It was quite the incentive apparently because they blew that goal out of the water! It also upped some excitement during the week, the kids had fun, and we were able to raise a lot of money for missions!!
In Victoria en Cristo, we have a competition between boys and girls. Every night we collect the offering during the closing activity. The next day we tell them who won the night before. The last day we give them the total amount. If the boys win the VBS director will receive a pie on her face, if the girls win the pastor will receive the pie on his face. The girls won this year, guess who got pied? The pastor…
We have a girls vs. boys contest as well. Our money goes to the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home and we encourage those giving as kids helping kids. We send home a letter the first day explaining where the money goes and to encourage parents to have the kids do extra chores or something for the money instead of just asking for it. Every year we try to incorporate the theme into our collection containers. This year we had leaders dressed as agents, dark sunglasses, and handcuffed the Agency D3 briefcases to their wrists. Which ever group wins the contest at the end of the week, either a boy or girl gets their name drawn and gets to put a pie in the directors face. This year she got slimed instead. The kids love the competition and the chance to pie the director!
Each year we do a competition between boys and girls. Our offering is taken during our opening worship rally . This year our offering was going to fund a new school our church is starting this fall in Haiti. For $5 per child per month we can educate a child in Haiti. That’s 3 teachers ( 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade) a principal, a custodian, a cook, one hot meal a day, text books, uniforms (required by the govt) and the building and utilities. The school will have 20 students per grade, 3 grades… Total of 60 kids. Our goal was to collect $1000 which would fully fund 20 students for a whole year. If we reached this goal the worship team would get to build an ice cream Sundae on my head. (I’m the Children’s Pastor) Our normal offerings in years past was $700-800, so this year was a stretch.
Well, through the faithful giving of the children and the Lords blessing, our VBS offering this was $3000. Praise God. This amount fully funds the ENTIRE SCHOOL IN HAITI…. All 60 kids for the whole year.
It was an awesome offering this year and I think I can still smell and taste the ice cream Sundae on my head from that day.
This year during Worship Rally they brought the offering to the altar to put in boys/ girls bucket. It was a cold water challenge between myself (children’s minister ) and the pastor. The children raised 1,625 for our Mission Project Feeding Children Everywhere. The great part is….Girls won! So I got to dump cold water on our Pastor. We did it from the baptistry to keep from making a mess and make it a less intimidating place for children to get baptized. The Pastor ended up getting me wet as well to the delight of all the children.
This year we chose to collect food vs. money. It was a lot more visual for the kids and a lot of the kids who didn’t have $ to bring in could still find a can or box in their cupboard at home. At the end of each night, a graph was displayed to show the kids who was winning. At the end of the week, the food was displayed on the stage. It was a great visual at how they helped!
We have a “penny race” between the boys and girls. The friendly competition really motivates the kids to bring in change, and bills, so their team can win. We donate the money to the local “Backpack Program”!
I the past we have tried by weight but that is a lot of weight to take to the bank. Our best has always been boys vs. girls although we have tried by grade. Losing team leader has gotten a pie in the face, hit with water balloons, dunked in the dunk tank, and sprayed by a diet coke volcano. We will probably be doing the water balloons this year as the kids will be tossing bombs.
Boys vs. Girls but paper money goes in the opposite gender’s bucket and counts as negative points. Coins count as positive points. Takes a little extra figuring, but the kids love it!
Each year we have a competition between the boys and girls. We have a set of scales that were made just for this competition. There is a boys bucket on one side and girls bucket on the other side. Each night as the children walk into the sanctuary to start the night off they drop their offerings in the associated bucket. The children anxiously wait for the buckets to be placed on the scale to see who has more weight in their buckets. The money is then taken and counted and announced each following night. The offerings are then donated to different missions.
This year we chose not to do a competition between classes or genders, but rather simply focus on our overall offering goal for the week. We always try to think of a theme-inspired incentive of doing something nasty/messy/mean to our pastor at the end of the week if we meet our offering goal – in past years we’ve made our pastor sit and eat ice cream in a pool full of ice water for Arctic Edge, turned him into a human hot dog for Game Day Central (he smelled like chili and onions for several days), and staged a mud-wrestling match with a “crocodile” in chocolate pudding for Boomerang Express. We tarred-and-feathered our music minister (and made him do the chicken dance) for Saddle Ridge Ranch, made our pastor “fly high” for Amazing Wonders Aviation by duct-taping him to the flagpole outside our building, and last year we turned our youth pastor into a human funnel cake (including raw eggs cracked over his head) for Colossal Coaster World. This year we made our youth pastor and intern drink “truth serum” made from a horrible assortment of ingredients – some of which were not exactly what they appeared to be (mayonnaise that was really vanilla pudding, for example). The kids LOVE getting to watch their pastors get messy and act silly when the goal is met, and it always makes for some great memories that they still remember and talk about even years later!
We collect our offering during Worship Rally. Children from 3rd and 4th grades help with this. They like being a part of the rally. We will use our offering to buy school supplies for children in our community.
We are having a superhero themed camp next week and all of our leaders picture and superhero name will be on their own individual container. At the time of offering the kids can pick a leaders jar and put their money in it. After 5 days we will count the money in each jar and whoever a leader has the most offering in their jar will be slimed! And if kids bring any form of offering they get their name entered into a draw to win a superhero bible and devotional book. Should be fun! (Hope I don’t get slimed!)
We always do boys vs. girls, the adults (workers and parents) get involved with the kids! This year we chose 3 ministries to split the offering between. For a small church that averages 50-60 kids per night of VBS, we collected $1425.00 this year! We always have tremendous support of the church members and parents! We also collect items throughout the week as part of the missions part. This year we collected canned goods for the local food pantry, and supplies for OCC shoebox gifts as we pack shoeboxes at a “Christmas in August” party. I think We have been very successful with offering totals and we are so blessed to be able to split it between local missions as well as the Cooperative Program!
Last year one of our yearly “VBS grandkids” came to me at spring break and told me that she felt that God wanted us to collect food that year instead of money. I’m not about to tell a kid that God hasn’t been speaking to her. So we did and we collected 536 items of food for our food bank. This child doesn’t attend our church except when she visits Grandma…it made a huge impact on her and the kids!
This year we had a competition between our 3&6 year old vs the 4&5 year olds to see who could bring the most cereal boxes. Any loose change also went to buy cereal. The kids really take is ownership in being to give to other children. The cereal goes to our food pantry that distributes to local families every week.
Girls vs boys. But it is a little different . We collect non-perishable food for our food pantry. More and more families are struggling in our area for various reasons. Through the food pantry, we get to be a blessing, spread some love and share the good news. And hopefully meet some new children to invite to our VBS.