Celebrating 90: Did You Know? Part 3

Lifeway’s VBS team is celebrating 90 years of life-changing resources for the ministry we all love and know as Vacation Bible School. Here are just a few tidbits you might not find in a history book.

• Approximately 3,000,000 people enrolled in VBS last year.
• It is rumored the first VBS (Daily Bible School) included lessons on hygiene. Considering VBS was started by a doctor’s wife there just might be truth to the rumor.
• The first VBS was started by Mrs. Eliza Hawes in response to the stories her doctor husband (Walter Aylett Hawes) told about the injuries sustained by kids playing in the streets of New York City. Mrs. Hawes began her school in 1898.
• Lifeway’s VBS resources include over 100 individual products.
• In 2008, 97% of leaders surveyed said the greatest need in VBS is help with follow-up.
• Approximately one million unchurched individuals are discovered each year as a result of VBS.
• The first associational Daily Vacation Bible School training clinic was held by the Grayson County Association at Sherman, Texas in 1928.