I Made This - VBS Collection Box

As you may have seen in the last post, I helped decorate for VBS at a local church in Gastonia, NC last year. I also made this money catcher for their "Boys VS Girls" yearly collection competition. Everyday at VBS, the kids pour into the building in the morning and drop their changed into the appropriate side. All of the money goes to charity, but only one group gets to claim victory for donating the most coinage.

My friend Heidi and I sweated this last decoration detail for weeks– WHAT are we going to do for the collection boxes? Then we literally found the pegboard used on the back of these boxes as well as the clear plexi-glass used on the front, and a plan came together.

And because the church was renovating their sanctuary, VBS was split up into THREE different locations around the campus. So that meant we made THREE of these. There was lots of sweating in my garage in the sweltering summer heat as I tested the location of the coin catching machinery. Perhaps if I had listened better in geometry class I could have done some quick math on the perfect angles...

The machinery is made from items we found at the hardware store–I think in the plumbing department. They are attached with braces screwed into the peg holes. We used the handy Cricut to cut out vinyl letters for the "Boys VS Girls" as well as dollar signs and arrows at the top. The back is braced with kick out legs on hinges that fold down for easy storage. There is a small door in the bottom back for collecting the money each day.

My favorite part is the shovel. The money drops into that but it has to be heavy enough to dump the change to the next tube. Getting that angle right was what took the most time.