Kids and volunteers smile while crafting at St. Martin Parish’s summer 2025 Vacation Bible School, which also collected donations for the local emergency shelter for women and children. COURTESY OF NICOLE GRAY
St. Martin VBS: Faith in action, one tribe at a time
BY NICOLE GRAY, SPECIAL TO THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC
This summer’s Vacation Bible School at St. Martin Parish in Rome was equal parts bible lesson, neighborhood block party, and living example of generosity. Dubbed Bible Adventures 2, the week focused on four key ancestors in Jesus’ family tree while rallying kids and adults to collect money and supplies for CrossRoads to Hope, Owensboro’s emergency shelter for women and children.
Each evening about 56 children were sorted into the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Tribes traveled together as nomads: singing, crafting, playing games, running chariot races and huddling for “Tribe Time.” There they heard the day’s bible story, kneaded dough for that night’s snack bread, and learned what life was like in ancient tents. Meeting an in‑costume “ancestor” – Joseph, Abraham and Rebekah – brought the scriptures to life. The goal was simple: help our kids see that the people in Jesus’ lineage were real, flawed, faithful human beings – just like us.
From the start, Debi Hopkins, director of religious education at St. Martin, wanted VBS to feel like the parish family table. A hot supper was served at 5:30 p.m. every night, free for anyone under 19. Registration cost nothing; families who could, slipped a donation envelope in the basket. The message was clear: money shouldn’t stand between a child and an encounter with Christ.
The parish donated small comfort items (toothbrushes, snack bars, coloring books, and personal care items) for Blessing Bags that would land in the hands of Crossroads guests. The final tally surprised everyone: $580 in cash, and 110 Blessing (or “Buddy”) Bags. Hopkins and volunteer Cheryl Clark also took a vanload packed full of the bags and other items donated like bottled water, and larger items to be used in the shelter, like quilts, along with toiletries, towels, diapers, and cleaning supplies and detergent. Crossroads’ director and staff visited three evenings, thanking the kids and telling stories from the shelter.
St. Martin’s partnership began modestly and keeps growing because, as Hopkins put it, “Serving the poor isn’t extra credit; it’s the Gospel.”
Ask any tribe member what they remember most, and you’ll get a range of answers: winning the camel‑race game, making wooden bead bracelets, or the shock of seeing how much toothpaste 110 tubes really is. But underneath the fun runs a deeper lesson: faith is meant to move, to travel, to pitch its tent wherever someone needs hope.
Thank you to every donor, volunteer, and pint‑sized nomad who made Bible Adventures 2 possible. May the generosity we practiced in one joyful week keep echoing through St. Martin – and far beyond – for months to come.
Nicole Gray is the communications director for St. Martin Parish in Rome, Ky.
Originally printed in the September 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
