By Heather Melton, UTO Staff Officer
The past few weeks, the UTO Board has been hard at work reviewing grant applications, which means I’ve been working on all sorts of projects, from our Lenten book group to preparing to ship spring/summer materials. In addition to the regularly scheduled work, I’ve started working on the second edition of our Vacation Bible School (VBS) materials. Our next edition of VBS is called “Gratitude Rocks!” and will use geology as our science theme for the week of materials.
The last time I created VBS resources, my kiddos were quite a bit younger and were the perfect age to test out crafts and STEAM activities. Now that they are older, I needed to find new testers for the materials. This year, I volunteered to help with my kids’ school yearbook. I was talking with a third-grade teacher about getting photos from an upcoming field trip to the Natural History Museum. She mentioned that she had applied for and received a grant to take the kids to the museum because they don’t get many opportunities to do hands-on science. I told her about our VBS program and asked if I could come over to school and try out some of the science experiments. She was thrilled. I gathered the supplies to try out one of the first experiments I wanted to include: creating geodes out of eggshells. I made the handout for parents (which is an important part of our VBS materials—communication home about what kids have done that day) and headed over to school. I learned a lot from the pilot trial—including how to get a stuck egg geode out of a jar—but I also saw an opportunity that these materials present that I hadn’t thought of before: connection.
Years ago, I worked at a church that had a rectory. I noticed that the corner of the front yard was where the bus stopped for our neighborhood elementary school. I also noticed that where families gathered was a giant sticker bush, likely planted to dissuade children from running on the grass but not welcoming at all. Over the summer, we pulled the bush out, and for the first week of school, we offered coffee, doughnuts, and snacks to the families who gathered at the bus stop. Church members came and helped, and we got to know our neighbors. What someone else had seen as a nuisance—kids messing up the grass—I saw as an opportunity to connect. Standing in the third-grade classroom, with kids so excited to get to use a pipette for the first time, I saw that our materials could help congregations connect in new ways.
Our VBS program was created intentionally to have each element connect with a theme but also to work all on its own. This means that you can pull out all the crafts and they will be as fun and engaging on their own as with the other materials. The same goes with our STEAM and gratitude activities. Many of our public schools are desperate for support; many would welcome a team of volunteers (be sure to follow the school’s background check policies) to help with PTA events or hands-on activities. You could even use the materials as a part of an after-school program. The possibilities are endless. When we show up to connect with our community, we are letting them know that they matter to us; we’re building trust and relationships. Connection takes time; one free doughnut or science experiment isn’t going to translate to new church members (although it might), but it is a way to connect with people we might not have had the chance to connect with otherwise.
Perhaps the most important part of this story is the bit that happened at the end. I told the kiddos that I work for an organization called the United Thank Offering and that we want to help people learn to say thank you more often. When I came back to package up the egg geodes to send home, the kids thanked me and UTO for letting them do a special science project. What was amazing was that it wasn’t a chorus of prescribed “thank yous”–it was a genuine thank you from each child as they carefully packed up their very fragile egg geode to take home. Turns out, their teacher took my mention of UTO as an opportunity to talk to them about gratitude, and she invited me to come back and do a gratitude activity next time. She had checked out our website and was impressed with what we do. Word got out: I’ve now done the rock cycle STEAM activity and craft with the kids in the gifted program, and I’ve got a waiting list of folks who want their class to be testers for the other science, craft, and gratitude activities when I get them figured out.
If this sounds appealing to you and your congregation, I recommend reaching out to your local elementary school principal and/or PTA president. Set up a meeting to listen and find out how your congregation might be able to help support your neighborhood school. Regardless, I hope that this month you’ll find new ways to connect with people. Are there overlooked opportunities in your life where you might be able to connect with your community? What gifts do you have that you’d like to share with others? Perhaps you love sewing—I bet there’s a 4H group that would love to learn from you. Maybe your church used to make prayer shawls—perhaps ask the local hospital if they would like blankets for the pediatric unit. It can be hard to ask to share our gifts, but once we do, we find the gift of connection. I know I was nervous about making egg geodes but am so grateful for the connections I made and the lessons I learned from some excited scientists.