Church fall festival ideas needed...

[Minnie's Pal]

HELP! I'm organizing our church's fall festival and I need some ideas. We are on a limited budget - so the less costly, the better.

Right now - we are definitely having a hot dog supper w/ church ladies providing cupcake desserts. Admission charge is a canned food donation for a local food bank. And we are doing truck treating.

 

[anniemae]

One thing we do is pumpkin decorating. We use the tiny gourds, then get a bunch of paint, glue, glitter etc. to decorate and let the kids go to town!

It's fun for them and a lot of the things to decorate the gourds are donated from people's craft closets (googly eyes, ribbons etc)

Not sure how much the gourds cost, but you can charge a couple of dollars per child to help with the costs.

 

[jama]

You could get the teens involved by running carnival type games...
take pictures at a fall display
"haunted trail walk"....at scout camp people bring carved pumpkins and we set them out on a walking trail..only the light from the pumpkin to see by...kids love it...little spooky but not scary..and fun to see the pumpkins.

 

[marthachick]

Food:
A fall festival needs food, right? See the thread below for items listed when asked for ideas for a bake sale.

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2279072

Games:
DS had a cheap plastic bowling set we used at ours. Purchased for less than $10 at Walmart and can be reused for years.

Set up 2 liter drinks similar to bowling and have a small ring (approx 4") and if they get the ring on a drink they win a prize.

Set up a "fishing booth". We would either put up a sheet in a corner or use a large sheet of cardboard to make a barrier. Get a 'fishing pole' and let the kids fish for prizes. Put a clothes pin on the end and have someone behind to attach a small prize.

Hole in one! Someone at church had a small portable putting green that they let us use. Let the kids have 2 tries or whatever.

Costume contest if it was close to Halloween. If your church doesn't like Halloween, have kids dress as Biblical characters or something like that. We always specified no spookies!

Cake Walk - have some of the ladies bake cakes or make prized desserts. Yum!

Prizes:
Candy or small toys. FUN school supplies like sparkly pencils, etc. Stickers. Coupons from fast food places where they sometimes do small books of coupons for a treat.

 

[okeydokey]

A cake walk is very easy to run if everyone contributes one cake. You can use chairs in a circle or taped off squares on the floor.

How about cookie decorating?

 

[live4christp1]

Our church has one every year the Wednesday evening before Halloween. We do the carnival games, popcorn, cotton candy, cake walk. At each carnival type game they can get some candy. They have a hayride, pony rides and usually a couple of those big air units (like one to bounce in and one like an obstacle course). They did marshmallow roast a couple of years but that one scares me (kids in costumes with flaming marshmallows ) so I was glad that they stopped that. They have a face painting table.

Canival games are usually the same as those mentioned above with the addition of a balloon/dart toss, basketball shoot, ring toss, lollipop tree, and last year they had a huge container of hershey kisses everyone got to guess how many and the guess closest got to take it home.

 

[marthachick]

last year they had a huge container of hershey kisses everyone got to guess how many and the guess closest got to take it home.

We did this too with a jar of candy corn. Cheaper than Hershey Kisses, but I must say, I would MUCH rather win the Kisses! Just depends on how much $ you have to spend.

 

[Rora]

All of the ideas other posters have given are great!! I think decorating/carving pumpkins would be really fun!

Depending on the cost, maybe you could do a hayride? Those really yell Fall Festival to me!

Good luck!

 

[live4christp1]

We did this too with a jar of candy corn. Cheaper than Hershey Kisses, but I must say, I would MUCH rather win the Kisses! Just depends on how much $ you have to spend.

They set it up really cute......like a kissing booth......(no, no one was kissing).....the booth was manned by the pastor & his wife.....when you turned in your guess you got a package of those wax candy lips.

 

[starrzone]

How about a fish pond for the smaller kids? Take long sticks, attach string and glue or tie clothespins to the end of the string. Then, set up a partition behind which the "fish" (perhaps older kids/teens from the congregation) will be situated. As the child fishes for his or her prize, a "helper" located out in front might say "Wow! Sally is such a brave 5-year old", or something like that, so the "fish" will know what to put on the end of her pole. This way, every child gets a prize and it will be age/sex appropriate. I helped with one of these at my church when I was in my late teens, and the guys and girls alike had a blast! The prizes can be just about anything, depending on your budget, as long as they're not too big or heavy.

 

[ead79]

Face painting is a big hit with kids and not too costly.

Also, could you rent a moon bounce thingy? They can be a bit pricey to rent, but our church is a member of a larger association that owns them and rents them to member churches very inexpensively, so you might check into that.

A cake walk would be inexpensive if people donate the cakes. Plus, everyone would probably rather win a homemade one than a store bought one anyway!

 

[Tazicket]

There's a lot of really great ideas here!

We do something really similar at my church - each Sunday School class does a booth and the kids win candy for participating. We also do face painting and hay rides and stuff.

I'm a Sunday School teacher in the preschool division at my church, so we wanted to make sure the little guys had something to do, since that's who we teach. We did a Story Time with Queen Esther booth (think Story Time with Belle, but Biblical). My co-teacher and I borrowed Biblical costumes from the church (she was Queen Esther and I was her hand maiden) and she told Bible stories on the kids' level (I think we did Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, Noah's Ark, and maybe one other story).

We handed out little prizes to the kids that were themed to the story we were telling at the time. (Cheap animal masks for Noah's Ark, and kazoos for Joshua). It was really cool and the kids seemed to enjoy it a lot!

I think we did a story every 15 minutes or so.

 

[Goofy05]

Build a scarecrow contest. Get some hay, possibly donated by a local farmer, some old jeans, flannel shirts, old shoes, etc. Kids stuff the clothes with hay, fastest wins.
Seed turkey. Kids draw an outline of their hands on heavy cardboard then glue different colored seeds on them. Colored popcorn seeds are great for the feathers.
Bake sales are always good. Any kind of raffle is great. Sell tickets and raffle off the prizes. Could be hand made items or baked goods, whatever you can get donated.
My church always had bingo, I don't know how your church feels about that. They also sold beer and roasted corn. Roasted corn can raise lots of money, as you can usually buy it cheap locally and sell them for a buck an ear. Mix butter/margarine with water in a coffee can for dipping and that stretches the butter/margarine.
Good luck with the planning! Church festivals are always a fun time!

 

[mickaholic4077]

Have a parish talent show. You would be surprised how many people in your congregation can actually sing,play an instrument,etc.

 

[Minnie's Pal]

Thank you for all of the great ideas. I think a few of these will work.

I like the Bingo idea. (This will pull in all ages.) And we are looking in to renting an inflatable.

We did guessing jars last year. That was a hit but it was hard finding the winners after it was over. (So many people were milling around inside & outside.) I will probably do it again this year but handle how you enter your guess differently.

I'm trying to avoid the small games & junk prizes. (We have a hard time getting help working the games & cleaning up so many rooms that they take up after it's over in years past.)

More suggestions are still welcome...keep them coming

 

[barkley]

my kid's church school does a donut eating contest-they suspend glazed donuts from strings and you have to eat them without using your hands (it takes a bit of practice to master eating one without causing it to fall off the sting that suspends it).

kind of a spin on on gingerbread houses-'haunted houses':get graham crackers and white, black, orange colored frosting. the kids construct and decorate them with candy corn and other halloween bulk candy.

for the younger kids-do a 'cupcake walk' vs. a cake walk. if you do a cake walk you can get more cakes if you suggest donors make only one layer ones (then you get double the donations).

my girl friends church does 'trunk or treat' and they have a contest (bragging rights and a certificate are the only prize) for the best decorated vehical.

pumpkin recipie contest (again-bragging rights and a certificate)-people can do breads, pies, cookies, butters....(ask entrants to provide their recipies to share with the crowd).

on a personal note-PLEASE provide some kind of adult and kid beverages that are NOT sweet. not every kid drinks hot chocolate or hot spiced cidar nor does every adult. something as simple as bottled water (which if you can get on sale can be sold reasonably at a huge profit) can make a big difference to non sweet drinkers.

 

[tomthebarncat]

Just an idea, remember there are no bad ideas when brainstorming!

 

[Rafiki31]

Can someone explain what a cakewalk is to me?

 

[live4christp1]

Also wanted to mention these:

Check with the members of your congregation and see if they have any contacts.

For instance, someone at ours has contacts at the Sheriffs office. They (sheriffs office) have a big obstacle course inflatable that they use for various events when doing the school drug awareness programs. So they are able to bring that and set it up no charge.

Another is National Guard.......our local unit has access to a portable climbing wall and it can be obtained to set up for the festival. They will usually send a box of goodies for prizes as well.....though maybe not everyone would want hats/footballs/etc. with National Guard being given out as prizes.

If you know of any organizations that have items such as these it never hurts to call and ask. The worst that can happen is a "no".

Another thing we have had is a petting zoo.......there is a local mobile petting zoo that will come bring rabbits, goats, etc. I know our zoo also will do that type thing with some of the animals so might be something to check in to.

 

[live4christp1]

Can someone explain what a cakewalk is to me?

People donate cakes. Here we put squares of numbered paper (can be in order or random) on the floor in a circle.....the bigger the circle the more people you can walk at a time. You have small slips of paper with the numbers in a container. To play people will choose a circle. We play some music while everyone walks around the circle. When the music stops you stop on a square. Then someone draws a paper slip.....the person standing on the coordinating number gets to pick a cake.