Kids, Carols and Christmas

Organising an ADRA Christmas Tree fundraiser is easy, and it can be a lot of fun! Deina Bailey explains.

Over the past few years, our church (Lilydale, VIC) has featured the ADRA Christmas appeal at our annual Carols night. Here’s the story of how we’ve built the event to now raise over $6500 in one night!

I have always been supportive of ADRA and love the work you do, so when our church started running a Carols program a few years ago, my husband and I thought it would be a great idea if we had a segment in the evening where we sold some of the ADRA gifts.

After some persuading and explaining, we were given 5-10 minutes of stage time on the night. We figured people can’t turn down a child asking for donations, so why not use that to our advantage!

We had our junior Sabbath School kids prepped and ready to sell off the tags auction-style. It was great fun and for our first time with very few people actually understanding what the tags meant, we managed to raise around $1500. Each year since we have run this without fail and it has just continued to grow in support from the church and in the amount raised.

Our secret is continuing to empower the young people to take charge. One year they made a hilarious video which was a highlight, and each year we have consistently exceeded the amount raised, reaching $6500.

I’m sharing this because at times I have been discouraged about fundraising, but I have prayed about it and honestly have been so humbled to see God deliver each time.

The ADRA Christmas Tree has become a highlight of the Carols evening! What an amazing thing to sit back and see God show up in this way and especially through others’ generosity. Having the faith battle each year and seeing God encourage me has been the best part of this.

The other reason I’m sharing this story is to show you just how much fun you can have doing this. Making it an annual event at Carols has now become something people anticipate and enjoy. It’s an event that brings our church together – building community in a fun and enjoyable way.

I hope you get inspired and see what you can do!

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