The Key to a Successful Penny Offering!!!!!

So if you are thinking of doing a penny offering and wondering if it successful. The answer is YES they are!!!!  Our Church has held 2 Penny Offerings the last 2 VBS.  Last year was for Foster Kids and this year it was for Missionaries.  We were soo overwhelmed with how "into" it the kids go.  We had parents coming and telling us as we checked in kids. "My child has been doing chores all day for pennies for the Penny Offering tonight.", or "they have been hunting all over the house or car for Pennies."  Oh and by the way it's ALWAYS BOYS VS GIRLS!!! So that adds to the competition.

So here are some tips if you are thinking of doing this.

•  A Penny Scale 
• ALOT of Rolled Pennies from the Bank
• 2 -5Gallon buckets like from Home Depot 

Now the Key to having a Successful Penny Drive are the following:

1. Excitement about what you are raising money for
2. Workers who are excited about what you are raising money for
3. Tell the kids the Penny's WEIGH more if they leave the wrappers on
4. If a kid buys a "brick" ($25) of Penny's tell them to leave it in the box that it will WEIGH more. (Trust me your penny counters will appreciate this one)
5. Lastly, an amazing group of people willing to count and roll all of the Pennies and Coins that come through.  

One last important note and that is this. One group may win by weight but you never know what is in those buckets till the Penny Counters get ahold of it.  The last year, we had a times were the boys had won by weight but when the Counters started counting they found in the girls, that they had wrapped $20 bills around their .50 penny bundle.  So you never know till the end.  And on those last 2 days you need to have extra people willing to come in and help count.

Our last two Penny offerings have blown our Children's Pastor away.  Last year for the foster kids. He had set a goal of $600 for the kids to raise. And the kids raised $1500.  So this year we were raising money for two missionaries.  One is going to the Congo and the other to Laos.  Our Childrens' pastor set the goal at $800 and yet again our kids blow us away with $1600.  So never underestimate a child.