What is your church doing for your youth this summer

[beaverpond]

This summer, we are upping our game compared to last summer. Last year was the first time we had a Summer Youth Program at our Church for 6th, 7th, & 8th graders. This year we are adding in 5th and 9th graders to the program.

We plan to grow the program each year by a couple of grades each year. Last year we started we a Bible Study and then had at least three and half hours of a rec program. We did things like tennis, ultimate frisbee, climbed a mountain trail, had a movie, day, miniature golf, made pizza and donuts, had BBQs, went on an ocean cruise, and the list goes on. We only met once a week, but we stand to do a lot of the same activities and some new ones.

We use e-mail and Facebook to communicate with the families so they know what we will be doing the following week and they know how to prepare and what to bring for footwear or sunscreen, bug spray, and so on.

We also encourage parents to participate in the activities because we know during the week we know sometimes it is difficult to find enough leaders. We do have a few core leaders, but as the group grows we want parental involvement.

We also have been promoting the program on Facebook, e-mail, USPS from kids from last year and kids in other youth programs we have that we have addresses on, as well as two local newspapers.

So what if anything are you doing and how are you doing it.

 

[DannLeavitt]

I have taken my youth group to a Christian camp for the past 3 consecutive years, it's become a bit of an expectation from the youth now. Good thing I love camping

This summer we are sinking our youth building budget into a new youth group - It's been three years in the waiting. Totally stoked about that.

For camp (and the building budget to a smaller degree) we do fundraising throughout the year to alleviate the cost on families, but I try to come up with fundraising techniques that are not awfully repetitive and that get a social and entertaining aspect to the teens. So a new fundraising method we are going to try this year is running a car wash on our towns main street. We are hoping this is both a fun social time for the teens and a profitable venture with not a lot of cost involved.

As the youth director at my church, I oversee the youth functions and am personally responsible for the 13-18+ age group. I have a partner who runs a younger age group with his wife, and we have an even younger class for small children. So far so good.