Goals:
To understand the meaning of making a "covenant"
To identify, design, and plan a stewardship project
To affirm individual contributions of time, talent, and resources to the project
To experience a sense of accomplishment for what they have done, and for making a difference in the lives of people in the congregation (or CLF), community, or faith

Materials:
A blank journal or notebook for each child
Chalice, candle, and matches
Building blocks (wood, cardboard, or plastic), two or three sets
Scissors
Tape or glue
Newsprint
Crayons and markers
Collection basket
Singing the Living Tradition hymnal

Preparation:
Read Family Stewardship Letter; Children, Money and Values: Ten Principles; and Helping Children with Allowances and Savings

Read the session below and decide who will lead each activity or how you will adapt it to suit your circumstances.

Collect needed resources and supplies.

If you wish, make arrangements with children who have musical gifts to share them during the closing ceremony. Such participation offers them a way to be stewards to Unitarian Universalism, and gives the closing ceremony more variety.

Copy template onto card stock for each child. Make a sample Stewardship Box.

Choose a project that is significant to your community. Make your project fit into the final celebration. The sample Celebration of Commitments provided includes a suggested format, but we encourage you to be creative.

When defining your project, consider these guiding questions:
What am I capable of doing?
What talents can I share?
What resources (treasure) do I have to offer?
How much time can we give to this project?

As you talk and plan the project with the children, consider carefully the following points:

The success of the project will depend on the children’s commitment to participate, your commitment to plan, arrange, and follow up, and the commitment of the people recruited from your community and the chosen social service agency to work with your group.

The kind of project that children of this age are most able to complete successfully is a service project involving either collecting and donating goods and/or donating time and effort to help or serve in a particular way.

Choose a project that can be begun and completed in a single morning.

Your project or actions can be in one or all of the three stewardship settings. For example, your students could decide to participate in the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee‘s Guest at Your Table program, or bake cookies and take them to shut-ins. The possibilities are almost endless. An important attitude to nurture is affirmation of individual gifts. People can learn to be generous. You provide an opportunity for your children to make a meaningful gift. The reward comes as the children see they have made a difference.

Some financial commitment to your congregation or CLF and larger Unitarian Universalist Association is an important part of the project. We are most likely to experience the joy of giving when we sort through our priorities and find a time and place for it in our lives. By educating participants about the value of stewardship, and by encouraging them to make giving to our communities, congregations, and other Unitarian Universalist institutions a part of our religious life, we challenge our congregation and Unitarian Universalist institutions to integrate young people into the full life of our religious communities. Empowerment and joy are the key words.

Activities:
Read, discuss, and plan an activity from Covenant for Kids

Lead the Stewardship session as follows:

Opening (10 minutes)
Start by allowing the children to build with blocks together.

Commentary (5 minutes)
1. Comment on the structures that the children have built and how some worked together and some built alone. State that this is similar to how we build stewardship in our congregation, our community, and the world. Sometimes we do things as individuals, like collecting for UNICEF; at other times, we do things in groups, like building a house for Habitat for Humanity.
2. Show them the sample Stewardship Boxes you have made. Discuss the six sides and items you’ve written or drawn on each side.

Story/Activity (20 minutes)
1. Tell the story of a stewardship project in which you have participated, such as Guest At Your Table, a Habitat for Humanity project, visits to hospital patients or the elderly, or a capital campaign fund drive.

2. Invite the children to the activity table. Distribute to each child a Stewardship Box pattern that you have copied onto card stock. Demonstrate how to create their own by doing one for yourself, as follows:

A. On each side of the box, draw a symbol to represent:
your name
your grade
a way you help at home
a way you are a steward in congregation
a way you are a steward in your community
a way you can be a steward for the UUA or the world

B. Cut out the box on the solid outside line. (For younger children, cut them ahead of time.)

C. Fold in on all the dotted lines.

D. Glue/tape the flaps and glue/tape them to the inside walls to form a box.

2. Help children make their own Stewardship Boxes, completing the six sides with their individual pictures and words.

Contemplation (15 minutes)
Invite children to bring their Stewardship Boxes and gather in a circle. Ask each child to share one side as you build a structure together with the boxes. Encourage participants to explain how they are or can be good stewards at home, in the congregation, in the community, or in the world.

On a sheet of newsprint or the chalkboard, list four or five ideas from the boxes (including your own) that would be practical projects for your community. The project might last only a week—e.g., baking cookies for shut-ins—or it might be a longer, ongoing project such as recycling or cleanup.

Discuss the pros and cons of the four or five choices. Then have the children vote on which project they will pursue. Point out that the use of the democratic process is one of our UU Principles and Purposes.

Commitment/Celebration (10 minutes)
Share how they can use their Stewardship Box.
Summarize the session by saying, “Today we shared how we can be good stewards at home, in the congregation, in the community, and in the world. We decided to _________________________________ to help care for ______________________________.”

Sing “We’ve Got the Whole World in Our Hands.”