According to Wikipedia the first Vacation Bible School (VBS) was started in the late 1800’s in the small town of Hopedale, Illinois. Things have certainly changed in the more than 100 years since then. Today VBS programs can include scores of children to keep track of, volunteers to coordinate, sign in sheets to organize, and perhaps a nominal fee to record.
You already know ProCare Software is a great management tool for your church child care or preschool program, but have you ever considered how it can help track child and volunteer information for your Vacation Bible School as well?
It’s easy to establish lists of children to invite and track those who attend. From there you can create letters, mailing labels and email lists. You can print sign in sheets for parents to mark as children are dropped off. If you charge a modest fee, or accept donations, that too can be recorded in ProCare. You can even keep track of who has checked into VBS and enhance Vacation Bible School safety and security.
Child Info, Mailing Lists, Volunteers
For children who already attend your church preschool or daycare program it’s easy to add new Child Tracking categories for VBS at the Family Data Setup screen. You might create separate categories for invitees and attendees and name them for the year (like VBS Invitee 2008 and VBS Attendee 2008). This lets you keep a history of children who have previously attended and makes it easy to generate lists of those who are (or were) part of the VBS program. You might even make a Family Tracking category for parent volunteers like VBS Volunteer 2008. Volunteers don’t have to be part of an existing family in ProCare; it’s easy enough to enter other volunteers too.
You can also use the built in ProCare Letter Merge to write an invitation or thank you note. In the letter you can encourage families to invite friends or neighborhood children who may be interested. The following year you can easily generate mailing labels or an email list to send to families whose children attended the previous year.
Roll Call & Sign In Sheets
Once the basic information for New Families has been entered you can print roll call or sign in sheets. Just go to General Reports > Family Data. From there choose either Rollcall Sheets or Sign In/Out Sheets. Then set the Primary Sort to Child Tracking and include only children with the appropriate VBS tracking category.
VBS Donations & Fees
To record the financial side of things for your Vacation Bible School create a Charge Description in Family Accounting Setup called something like VBS Fee or VBS Donation. If families are paying a fee, or making a donation, you can post this item to the Family Ledger Card along with their payment. You may use the Selected Accounts feature of Automatic Billing to charge only families with the VBS tracking category. If donations are coming from other sources you may wish to review our FAQ on Donations & Grants. You may also record VBS expenses with ProCare Accounts Payable.
Attendance & Security
You can keep track of who has checked into VBS with the Time and Attendance Tracker and enhance Vacation Bible School safety by connecting a Time Clock or Door Controller to your electrically operated security door. More about Security Products from ProCare.
Your Experiences
I’d be interested to hear if any of you are currently using ProCare to help manage your Vacation Bible School programs. Your comments below can help other VBS coordinators and give us ideas for future ProCare enhancements.
Until next time, cheers!
-Phil
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If you have questions or comments about this article (or suggestions for another article) I’d be pleased to hear from you. Drop me at note at phil@procaresoftware.com.
