Awana deficit and lack of church participation

[sanstus]

Hello. I need some advice on some problems our Awana program is going through. Here's whats happening::

My church has an Awana program. year after year I seen the leaders of Awana to take their own money and add to the Awana fund. These leaders aren't well off. But there they are putting money from their own pockets.. because parents either didn't pay their fees(25 dollars) and they ordered books and trophies etc with the promise to pay that back to Awana. It never happened. So I finally join Awana and I am taking on the task of recovering the money from the parents. Some of the parents no longer attend said church. So thats over with. But most of them do. Every time they are charged this is how it goes down:: "hi your 25 dollars are due, i know 25 can be a lot but you can pay in payments, a dollar here a dollar there, eventually it will add up" they say "sure next week ill pay it" and then nothing.

As a result of these situations and many like it, our awana program is currently negative 800 dollars. The Awana program has officially blocked us from making purchases and any promises to pay will no longer be accepted. We are officially disavowed.

So I came up with a plan. We need someway to come up with 800 dollars. I have a plan to charge 1.25 a week year round. Even when awana is in vacation, problem is I dont know how ill pitch it to the people. How will I justify the price increase? It was 25, now its 60 a year. Im banking on the fact that its only a dollar and they wont really feel it as 60 a year even though it is. What do you guys think of my methods? or should i take another route? What would you do?

 

[saved24]

I think it sounds like a good idea to charge $1.25 a week, not a lot of money really. When I went to pioneer girls 40 years ago we paid 10 cents a week, they were called shares. I could get a chocolate bar for 10 cents at that time, so that's about the same as what $1.25 will get you now, well at least in our town, were prices are on the high side.

It might also be an idea, if the parents and church agrees, to have fundraisers. One idea is for the kids to collect recyclables and turn it into money, another idea bake sales etc.

Wishing you well in your endeavors. Sending up a prayer for you.

PS Welcome to the Christian Forums. Hope you enjoy your time here. God bless.

 

[katautumn]

It can be really tricky when you have children in your AWANA program that either cannot afford the dues, or their parents are not involved. At one church I was at, most parents were comfortable financially and we had a system where dues were paid all at once to cover the cost of the child's AWANA uniform and books. At the second church most of the children came from poor homes and uniforms and dues were cost prohibitive. We decided to not do uniforms at that church, but we did have a church meeting and asked people in the congregation to decide if they would like to sponsor a child to help cover the cost of the workbooks and awards. We were blessed to have many elderly members of our congregation come forward to help the children.

AWANA is a very costly program, and if you don't have either a substantial church tithe subsidized budget for it, or parent participation, it can cause problems. Both churches I've been in that had AWANAs, one no longer does it due to lack of funds and the other has drafted a more abbreviated program that doesn't create such a financial burden.

My prayer is that your church can find a way to meet the financial needs and continue reaching children with the Gospel.

 

[Gary Quest]

This is going to hurt but.....Cut the program!!!. We don't charge parents to go to church why charge the kids? Yes i understand the trophies,uniforms,badges etc..is this a Wednesday night program? if so, Wednesday should not be so rigid (my opinion). Wow! 800 hundred dollars.

 

[freebiblelessons]

I'm inclined to agree with Gary. It's probably best to do something different instead. You could do a bible study or come up with your own lessons.

 

[beforHim]

Agree with Gary also.

But, since pitching this idea (cutting the program) will, to some people, be anathema, why not try:

(spoken to the congregation) You're all Christians, right? Start acting like ones! Stop lying and being lazy and not caring and etc., and act like Christ!

​

Maybe I'm being naive, but some good ole' fashioned exhortation never hurt anyone.

EDIT: Ha, I'm such a dork! I'm used to the apologetics forum which gets posted on several times a day, but I just noticed that this post is from last Sept or something! My bad for "bumping" unnecessarily

 

[beaverpond]

I know I am way late coming into this thread. Our church has an Awana Program and we are completely church funded. We don't charge the families one red cent for anything, not for awards, not for uniforms, not for handbooks. In the years we have had this program our kids have been pretty responsible, we have had to replace at most 3 handbooks a year and maybe 2 or 3 uniforms because the kids outgrow them. But our uniforms don't come from Awana. We designed our own with the help from a local t-shirt shop that is owned by a member of the church. I have a budget to stick to and if for some reason I need to exceed it I go before the deacons and explain why. Because of the distance and cost, we don't participate in the Awana Games, Bible Quizzing, or Grand Prix around the region. However, we do it in our own church so the kids can have a good time on their own. We even let them compete against their parents in some of these activities. It makes things more interesting at a local level.

The reason we are church funded is because many of the younger families are struggling to stay afloat and many of our elder families of the church have provided funds for this program or have given permission to override the budget in years past when necessary the couple of times I have needed to.

In our state, town's residents are sent to the local church for general assistance...we help with heating oil and fire wood. Another church in town has a food pantry. Another one is set up to help out with emergency assistance for rent or mortgage payments. We all pull together when one of its citizens loses their home to a fire. We are the local version of the American Red Cross...we all show up to the fires bringing water or coffee and donuts or burgers (depending on the season and time of day) donated by Dunkin Donuts and McDonald's Restaurant.

Whenever, a big storm comes blowing through the tree removal companies bring the hardwood trees over to our church instead of turning them into chip. It adds to our resources and it is less work for us to go and get it.

I know these last few paragraphs are off topic, but we need to be looking at the larger picture at what we can be doing for our communities to change who we are as Christians. We are not that church who is charging our kids and their families every time they walk in the door. We are that church who is helping our community's fire victims, we have multiple youth programs going from k-12th grade, we even will help keep our citizens warm if they need it (all we request is that they attend church once with us and most will and a few would rather go without, some even come back)

So our church is way more than sharing the Gospel of Christ, it is a community outreach center that focuses on Christ and showing people what Jesus would do.

 

[parsley]

When I went to pioneer girls 40 years ago we paid 10 cents a week, they were called shares. I could get a chocolate bar for 10 cents at that time

Scouts was like that too -- the kids brought in their dues, which taught them responsibility with money. (Hrm did they grow up to be parents who didn't pay their kids Awana fees?)

It's really sad that this has happened, but you have a great solution. People who live paycheck-to-paycheck look at lump sums and gulp. But a dollar here or there does not require a 'wait until payday.' In fact, speaking of chocolate... I'll bet if you sold cookies at the drop-off, you'd make your 800 back.

Leadership can be so frustrating -- people treat you like you're being paid for the time and materials you donate. All the blame goes to the volunteer leaders. Maybe ask the parents to take turns assisting each week, and they can see what you put into the commitment!

 

[beaverpond]

There is a problem with that when it comes to volunteering. Anybody who volunteers in Awana must be a Christian and in our program most of the kids come from non-Christian homes. We actually started up again yesterday and only five kids go church on a regular basis. Our leaders are made up of those from within the church and with the exception of four of our kids all the rest come from other towns in the community.

I see the idea of how to get the $800 back. Many churches do not allow fundraisers like bake sales and stuff. And if this program is like ours, a lot of kids are brought in by the school district and some kids are brought home by the leaders.

Our church came up with idea and has not heard a single word from sanstus, and we would love to see other churches get on board with this, but not before some questions have been answered first. Our church sent a message to him for information and asking if there was some way we could help dig them out. We were then going to reach out to other churches with successful Awana Programs to also lend them a hand as well. However, we have not heard a single word from him and until we do we can't and won't go any further.

 

[parsley]

Many churches do not allow fundraisers like bake sales and stuff.

Really? I wonder if that is just liability for food preparation, which is an issue in schools, and businesses needing compliance. Usually commercially-packaged food like candy bars is not an issue.

I don't like the idea of kids going door-to-door or responsible for approaching their parents' friends (which ends up being the parent taking orders at work). But since the debt came from the parents, there could be little creative ways of getting that back from them.

It's too bad that a ministry needs to be focused on raising funds, but that is often the case.

What is Sanstus? The link didn't work and it didn't come up in a search (except a game).
On Suze Orman last night, she brought up how buying things on credit can sometimes be equated with stealing, if one can't pay it back right away. People want something they can't afford, and find a way to get it without paying when they get it. Then they hope someone else will bail them out when the debt piles up.

 

[beaverpond]

I am not trying to be rude, but look who started this tread. Our church is has an idea of helping them out and would like to get the support of other churches who would be willing...not to support the church's Awana Program but to support the kids families who can't support buying the handbooks and uniforms at a set amount. But like I said, we have some questions before we go ahead with this idea and yet we have heard nothing from this person and have sent this person a private message and an e-mail with no response. Can't help a program if they won't respond.

 

[parsley]

That's nice of you. Since they only posted here once a year ago, they probably haven't logged in to their account, and forgot they even were a member. Pray that they'll log in again!