Mother's Day and Other Days in St. Thomas, Ontario

Mother's Day is just around the corner. Are you planning to reach out to mothers and families that day with something special? Many are finding ways to share the Gospel with the community by using such events as a springboard. Other submissions will be posted over the next day or two but here is one from St. Thomas, Ontario submitted by Joan McCandless. She would be happy to respond by email to any questions you may have.

Mother's Day

In St. Thomas for many years we have honored Moms on Mother's Day. We invite them to come for refreshments, beginning a few minutes before the regular S.S. time. We have special speaker and then give each Mom with a small gift presented by one of her children.

The refreshments are usually cheese balls and crackers etc., fresh strawberries, cake and ice cream, as well as hot and cold beverages.

The gifts have ranged from small plants, stationary items, to soaps& lotions. Dollar stores are great for ideas.

Father's Day and Annual Sunday School Treat

Our S.S. treat is in June. This allows us to follow the school year and provides a good opportunity to break from classes for the summer and start the summer open class program. We have incorporated Father's Day in the activity of the day, in the past year or so. Dads have received a jar of homemade jam. It is the awards day for the children as well. We do this event at about 4:30 p.m. so it actually replaces our gospel mtg. for the day.

This again is preceded by a chicken dinner and the trimmings.

Easter

We also do an Easter Dinner, which follows a special speaker. This year we had 16 parents sitting listening.

Dinner is usually ham, scalloped potatoes, salads, corn, rolls and butter with cake and ice cream for dessert.

Christmas

At Christmas we again have a dinner following a special speaker. Each family receives a small poinsettia plant and has a family picture taken in the foyer of the hall.

This is a traditional turkey dinner with homemade desserts. Candy-canes at the door when leaving are a special treat.

Using the Foyer

The foyer of the hall has a very large bulletin board. Each month it is the responsibility of a different sister to design a new board, according to season or Bible related topic. Always there are verses and/ or Biblical themes. Any pictures of S.S. events from the previous month, birthdays for the present month and the class pictures are on there as well. The kids love to check and see the new items.

Willing to Share

One other item of note are S.S. treat themes. Through the years we have tried to have a theme, songs to accompany the theme,(even to learning many new ones) and a backdrop to accompany it. We have lots of stories and logged many hours in putting some of these together but it has always been a rewarding experience. In fact we have wondered how we could have a resource centre to share these ideas and even the backdrops themselves.

Hope some of this has been helpful. It seems we make the best inroads with children and parents and if the confidence is there by the parents, they are visitors at these events, many for as long as they have children attending. How we can reach them further is a question.

Contact: Joan McCandless

More on Mother's Day to follow.