For the past half-century, First Free hosted a multi-week, summer day camp for kids. And for most of those years, it was called Summerama. As times change along with family and community dynamics, our church has retired Summerama for 2025. Instead, Kids Ministries plans a one-week day camp June 23-27. It’s a hybrid of Summerama and a vacation Bible school, called VBS XL (short for Vacation Bible School Extra Large). The camp runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day and the cost is only $20 per kid for the whole week. Registration is open now.

We spoke with Kari Heckler, First Free Kids Director, about what’s anticipated for this summer’s event.

What went into the decision to move away from Summerama after 50 years?

For the last couple of years, we’ve been looking at wrapping it up. It’s been more than 50 years and it had a great run. Today, so many of the Christian schools have camps all summer long, and they are able to staff those with their teachers and whatnot. We’re not here to compete with all the other wonderful camps happening.

Also, Summerama struggled to be able to afford itself, because minimum wage kept hiking up. We also don’t have the number of college kids that we used to have here, to work at Summerama.

And then we also came to a point where we don’t want to be childcare all summer. That’s not what we’re called to do. What we want to do is share about Jesus. There are different seasons for ministries, right? So right now, our ministry and the season we’re in is to just really share the gospel with kids and get them to bring their friends to things.

What is VBS XL?

It will look like a Summerama week, but with volunteers. And we can get volunteers because it’s one week, not all summer. We’re looking at high-school volunteers and some adults hopefully.

And what I really hope we’ll see is what we’ve seen on some Wednesday nights. They come the first day, and by the second day they’ve got friends coming. And we could build on that. When they invite a friend, the friend will have a code so they won’t have to pay the $20 registration fee. We just want them to come hear about Jesus. I’d like to see us start with one number of kids and have it almost double by the end.

Every day at VBS XL, we’re going to share Bible stories and point to how they are true history. They really happened. And every day—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday—they are going to hear the gospel message. Our hope is that they will start to understand how to have a relationship with God. Because that’s why we’re here.

This is for kids of what ages?

Kids going into kindergarten through going into fifth grade. We will all be together for some of the big stuff on stage. But then we’ll have age-appropriate stuff for the littles separated from the bigger kids.

So if someone were to walk on to the church campus here that week, it would look pretty much like Summerama?

It’s going to look a lot like Summerama did last year, because last year was really our “secret” practice run. We won’t be using the tent for the stage and stuff, due to some vandalism the past couple of years. And spiders (laughs).

So we’ll be inside (the church building) for the stage, but we’ll be outside a lot, because I believe you’ve got to be outside during VBS.

Looking ahead then, is this year also a trial run?

We take it a year at a time. But we’re planning on doing this, at least for a while. We’re really looking forward to emphasizing our family activities, too. And hopefully some of these families will come to church here. We’re going to land it with a family night, inviting them back. We’ll have the grill out and just keep it low key. Nobody’s going to be pressuring them to do anything. We’ll just try to connect with the families and then invite them to other family events we have. And hopefully they will plug in if they don’t have a church home yet.

What will the teaching look like for the kids?

We’re going to use the curriculum that we use on Wednesday nights. Because we really love it, and the kids seem really receptive to it.

That’s going to be what we draw our Bible stories from, and some of our crafts, and our small-group discussions. We’re excited to see what we can do with it over full days.

You get a wide range of kids and their experiences with Christianity vary, from zero to attending church here every week. How do you handle that, teaching-wise?

We have that on Wednesday nights, too. I believe you should never be tired of hearing the gospel. So if they hear it and they’ve already chosen Christ, it never hurts to keep hearing it. And hopefully they will be excited about their friends hearing it.

And I’ve seen it: If they invited their friends, they’re really going to want their friends to plug in and know about Jesus because that’s why they invited them. So I hope that they’ll have a heart to share about Jesus and be encouraging to them and not be like, “Oh, I’ve already heard this before.”

Toni (Rowley, Kids Ministries Coordinator) is going to do a lot of the teaching, too. And she’s a great teacher. So I think whether you’ve heard the stories and heard about Jesus a million times or never heard it, I think it will be fun to listen.

What else would you like our church family to know about this that they might not know? Or what sort of misinterpretation could we correct?

It can be looked at as a negative, because a maybe a lot of people went to Summerama or their kids did, and it’s not the exact same thing anymore. But the staff here and the people who serve, and the kids, are looking at it as a big positive. Because we’ve been able to put some resources into a week that we normally can’t do.

When you talk about putting resources into it, what’s an example?

People who are gifted in an area of serving and teaching or being with the kids can actually come in for a week and serve as volunteers.

That’s a lot easier than asking for a six- or eight-week commitment from someone.

Yeah. And then, for another example, we’re going to have a water slide here on Wednesday. That’s going to be something fun — something we couldn’t have afforded in past years, because we didn’t want to have it one week and not another.

You talked a little about this not being daycare. If feels like more went into these decisions than just budget and staff limitations.

What we were seeing the past few years was that, by about the third week of Summerama, a lot of unchurched kids who came here were really struggling. We didn’t know their families, and they were just tired and wanted to go home. A lot of them were going from here to their sporting events. And so that makes behavior problems. And then we were working on behavior problems instead of relationships with the kids.

Are there needs connected with VBS XL that the church should know about and could help with?

If anyone wants to serve, there are opportunities to serve a half a day or a full day, or if you just want to come help during lunch time. There are a lot of ways you can serve.

How can our church family be praying for this?

Definitely pray for the right volunteers to come and serve, because we’re just starting that process right now. They can find Toni or me at a table in the lobby the last two Sundays of this month—March 22 or 29. Or just email me (karih@firstfreerockford.org) if they’re interested.

And then really pray that the kids come in. Pray now that the Holy Spirit will be moving in their hearts, that they be ready to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, or be ready just to grow in their relationship with him. This is even a great opportunity to recalibrate. Maybe they made that choice when they were in second grade and now they’re going into fifth, and they’re like, I’ve gotta get it together. This is a great opportunity to do that.

So we just want to pray for their hearts to be ready. And for it to be a good time. We want it to be fun for the kids.

Top photo: From last year’s Summerama day camp.

RELATED: From 2023, a look at 50 years of Summerama day camp.