Our 2002 Vacation Bible School Program
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  During the summer of 2002 many kids made a beeline to Riverside Presbyterian Church because they had a bug blast at Bug Safari.  Bug Safari Vacation Bible School was a huge success!  We had 70 kids signed up.  30 were from Youngstown and the rest from Riverside and our community.  What a wonderful time we had.  Very tiring but an amazing amount of fun.  The kids were split up into crews of 5 or 6 and named after a bug.  The crews we had were Praying Mantis, Caterpillar, Beetles, Butterflies, Snails, Ladybug Landing, Bees, Crickets, Fireflies and the Ants.  They then would rotate from one workshop to another.  The workshops included Sing and Play Buzz, Doodlebug Crafts, Picnic Place, Bible Exploration, Games, and the Firefly Finale.  What was so amazing is how the word spread out to everyone. We started with 30 kids on the first day and by the end of the week there were 70 kids and 30 volunteers.  They learned the stories of David and specific bible points everyday.
 
Whenever a bible point was said, they would have to yell AWESOME!  The bible points were, God Knows Us, God Forgives Us, God Helps Us, God Helps Us Help Others and God Is Our Friend.  We never saw so many smiling faces like we did during this week.  We also had a Mission Project for the kids to focus on.  We collected pennies for Habitat for Humanity and we also collected all sorts of supplies for the SPCA Rainbow Shelter here in Niagara County.  We then had people from both organizations come to accept our donations on Friday during our Firefly Finale.  After the finale we had a wonderful picnic with pizza and finger foods for all the kids and their families.  Kids also brought in non-perishable items for the Youngstown Presbyterian Food Pantry.  Also Youngstown Presbyterian Church was gracious enough to send us a wonderful donation and supply all the food to help make this program such a success.  A big thank you to all the volunteers, crew leaders and teachers for all your hard work, time and energy.  Without you we would have never been able to pull this off.   It was "AWESOME"!!