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Great Treasure Day, the day every child in every Beach Club receives his or her own KBC Explorer’s Study Bible, is coming to your club very soon. Actually, a small number of clubs have already had Great Treasure Day. This fall, Great Treasure Day will take place in a record 191 Beach Clubs. This fall, it’s highly likely we will hand out the 65,000th Bible since our ministry began in 2003.

God’s word is the greatest treasure anyone could ever find, and it is the foundation on which KiDs Beach Club® is built. We want every child to have their very own KBC Explorer’s Study Bible to read, study, share and grow from, making a daily and eternal impact on their lives. This is a fun and exciting day for all involved.

Great Treasure Day is celebrated differently by every Beach Club and usually takes place during the fifth club meeting each year. Most of those will fall in the month of October though some Beach Clubs will celebrate their Great Treasure Day in November. 

Bibles are provided to our partnering churches at no additional cost to them. This is because of our many great Bibles for Beach Club donors, whether they give at the annual Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner, on North Texas Giving Day as a monthly Bible donor or at the end of the year.

We want to encourage our volunteers to take photos and videos during their Great Treasure Day and to share them with us at KiDs Beach Club®. And when your children bring those Bibles into your home, we want to hear what getting it means to your kids and what it means to you when your child receives a Bible.

Please share your pictures, videos and stories on social media by using the hashtags #KiDsBeachClub and #GreatTreasureDay. We hope you’ll follow us and engage with us in our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram communities.

If social media isn’t your thing, you can email us anytime at news@kbcmail.org so that we can communicate it on our blog or in the monthly Surf Report e-newsletter.

To see when Great Treasure Day will be held in your child’s Beach Club, visit that club’s page on our website, which can be found by clicking kidsbeachclub.org/find-a-club.

If you would like to support our Bibles for Beach Club Program, click here or text the word “Bibles” to 444-999.

Thank you to everyone who participated in North Texas Giving Day last Thursday, September 19! Your support is helping fight the spiritual battle that going on in our communities. Your gifts are helping our organization shine the Light of Jesus Christ in public schools.

Our volunteers shine the Light and then the students in our after-school Bible clubs are shining that Light in their school, at home and in their community. Your gift is making an eternal difference in the lives impacted weekly in Beach Clubs across the country.

You helped us raise nearly $55,000, easily surpassing our $40,000 goal and last year’s total of almost $37,500. Several of you made gifts on the North Texas Giving Day website, but others donated through our website, mailed in checks or gave using our new text-to-give technology. Of the 123 people who made a gift on North Texas Giving Day, 60 were first-time donors.

Your gifts allow our volunteers to shine the Light of Christ in public schools by sharing the gospel with kids, teaching them biblical character and providing them with their very own copy of God's word, which often times is their very first Bible. In some instances, it's the first Bible in a child's home.

We had a full slate of activities on North Texas Giving Day that started at 4:30 a.m. with a small group representing KiDs Beach Club® at South Victory outside the WFAA-TV studios in downtown Dallas and ended after 10 p.m. when Dr. Frank Banfill, our executive vice president for strategy and organizational growth, wrapped up an appearance on a local radio station. Watch Now!

If you were in the DFW Metroplex and tuned in to News 8 Daybreak on WFAA-TV that morning, you probably saw our motley crew wearing their bright orange KBC leadership t-shirts holding our new “KiDs Beach Club” and palm tree signs. Jack Terrell, our founder and president, talked about the armor of God and how Beach Club volunteers are helping students in public school suit up to fight the spiritual battle between darkness and light that is going on in our neighborhoods and in culture at large.

Throughout the day, we shared other videos and went live on Facebook on multiple occasions. One video highlighted volunteers from First Baptist Church Richardson who enjoy taking “church” into the community. Kathy Porter, a former educator and now the club leader at Northrich, said the gospel is the Light that can change a life.

Your generosity is appreciated. In times like these, the work you're helping us do is more important than ever. Your generosity is helping us share the Light of Christ in public schools, which is making an impact on the next generation. The impact is eternal. Thank you!

If you did not have a chance to make a gift on North Texas Giving Day, please know you can support us anytime at kidsbeachclub.org/give or by texting the word “Bibles” to 444-999.

Children who attend Beach Club already bring their Bible to school on the day their club meets, but KiDs Beach Club® is encouraging everyone to bring their Bible with them to school another special day; Bring Your Bible to School Day is Thursday, October 3. 

Bring Your Bible to School Day is an annual, nationwide, religious-freedom initiative for students from elementary school all the way up to college level. It was created by Focus on the Family to equip and empower Christian students to understand their religious freedoms and express their biblical beliefs in a way that shows the love of Jesus.

Participation in Bring Your Bible to School Day is student organized and initiated, as well as protected under both First Amendment and Equal Access rights. These are the same rights that allow KiDs Beach Club® to be held on public school campuses.

In recent years, you may have noticed the increase in news headlines about students being told they can’t engage in simple religious-freedom activities, such as reading their Bible personally during free time or praying during lunch. That’s why it’s so important to come alongside our students and encourage them that they do still have religious-freedoms protected under the United States Constitution – and they don’t have to be ashamed of or hide their deeply held religious beliefs.

Students in Beach Club know they can have their Bible at school and read it during quiet time. They enjoy reading it before school, in the library, hallway, cafeteria and even together on the playground.

They are taught how to share their faith and pray with their classmates. These religious freedoms are protected. 

Read More: Here's How You Can Make Jesus Cool at School!

On Bring Your Bible to School Day, thousands of students across the country will take the lead on their campuses to celebrate religious freedom and share God’s hope with peers by taking a simple action: Bringing their Bible to school!

We hope all Beach Club kids will participate and we encourage you to your KBC Study Bible with you to school that day. If you can take a picture of your child with his or her KBC Bible at school and share it with us using the hashtags #BringYourKBCBible and #MyKBCBible we would love to see those pictures!

To learn more about what you can do to support the students’ efforts and help them get the word out, please visit bringyourbible.org. They have resources for parents and churches to help you share the event with your students. They also have videos of students just like yours sharing their story of bringing their Bible to school. They even have explanations about myth vs. fact regarding students’ legal rights. 

I Timothy 4:12 says, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” And that’s what the Bring Your Bible website seeks to equip students to do.

Parental support for students participating in Bring Your Bible to School Day will be absolutely key since it does require courage in this culture of spiritual relativism to acknowledge the existence of redemptive truth. So, we hope you will surround your student participant with prayer and encouragement as they participate in the event.

Another year of the Hang 10 Summer Reading Program came to a close Labor Day weekend. We provide the plan to encourage students to read their KBC Explorer’s Study Bible every day during the summer months when they can’t attend Beach Club.

We often hear from parents or grandparents telling us about how their children or grandchildren enjoy the Summer Reading Program and some even send pictures to show those curious faces buried in their Bible.

Our Summer Reading Program focuses on walking readers through the Bible, using stories selected from each Bible book. The daily reading plan provides Bible passages and additional “bonus” content designed to help students dig deeper into their KBC Study Bible.

Our reading program isn’t just for kids. It’s a plan for anyone and it’s great when parents, grandparents, teachers, volunteers and other adults tell us they participate. We got an email last month from April Ford, whose daughter participates in the Summer Reading Program. Actually, the mother and daughter tandem are working through the program together.

“We both read the plan this summer and then get together to discuss what we got out of the topic and the scriptures,” Ford said. The point of her email was to ask if KiDs Beach Club® offers other reading programs.

Unfortunately, we do not, though we do send “Hang 10” pages home each week with students who attend Beach Club that highlight the character word, memory verse and Bible lesson. It also contains a mini five-day plan to get kids to develop the habit spending 10 minutes every day with God, either reading the Bible or in prayer.

Ford’s daughter doesn’t attend a Beach Club and it might come as somewhat of surprise, but she’s now a high school sophomore. She only attended Beach Club for one year after her family moved when she was in sixth grade and her elementary school had a Beach Club. She received a KBC Study Bible that year before going on to middle school.

Ford wants to thank everyone who supports KiDs Beach Club®, including the donors and volunteers.

“I want to thank you for all you do at KiDs Beach Club® and for taking the time to teach our kids about God and prepare them for their future,” she said.

Psalm 119:105 tell us, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

When you support our Bibles for Beach Club program, please know you are putting a Bible in the hands of every student in every one of our after-school clubs, but you’re also teaching them how to use it so that it illuminates their path beyond Beach Club.

KiDs Beach Club® is grateful for our students, parents, volunteers, educators, churches and other friends of our ministry. We are excited to hear how the Lord is working in your child’s life, in your family, in your Beach Club, in your school and in your church.

Your KBC stories and experiences not only inspire us at the corporate office but they also encourage others who are part of our amazing team of more than 2,200 volunteers and more than 20,000 parents and supporters. 

As the Lord provides powerful moments in your Beach Club or in your child’s life, please take a moment to share them with us by visiting kidsbeachclub.org/mykbcstory. Of course, you can email your story idea to stories@kbcmail.org or you can share them with us on social media by using the hashtag #MyKBCStory.

We want to not only showcase you and the students at Beach Cub but to show our amazing donors and supporters how their prayers and financial gifts are resulting in life-changing experiences in communities and public schools across the country.

We have many avenues to share your great stories with thousands of our KBC friends:

• Surf Report E-News
• KBC "Beach Currents" Blog
• Bibles for Beach Club Monthly Newsletter
• Social Media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @KiDsBeachClub

The story below was originally published on our blog on April 26, 2017, when Michael Proctor was a volunteer in the Beach Club at Mohawk Elementary in Richardson, Texas.

Michael Proctor volunteers at the Beach Club at Mohawk Elementary in Richardson, Texas every Friday afternoon. He has been faithfully serving with KiDs Beach Club® for a few years, but visiting public schools is nothing new to him.

Proctor, now 20 years retired, spent years serving as a juvenile probation officer. He logged a lot of time in public schools and considers it a joy to be back volunteering in the public school system. The big difference is that this time he is sharing the Good News of Jesus instead of dealing with troubled kids.

Proctor is amazed that he is allowed to go into public schools with his church through KiDs Beach Club® to share the gospel. 

He says it is a great thing to be able to reach these children at such a young age and influence them positively, rather than trying to reach them after they may have made some negative life choices.

“More needs to be put into prevention,” Proctor explained. “Instead of dealing with things after they have already happened. That is what this program is about.”

KiDs Beach Club® is teaching children the word of God so that as they grow and mature they will make better life choices, instead of negative ones. The truth of scripture is incorporated in every club meeting, which reinforces the character words taught each week in club and in the elementary schools themselves. The vision of KiDs Beach Club® is for every child to have a Jesus experience within the culture of their elementary school.

Proctor has had the same core group of boys in his surf team each school year since he started serving in Beach Club. He has had the joy of pouring into this group, teaching them about the Bible and watching them grow with the Lord.

Proctor enjoys loving on these kids, many of whom view him as a grandparent-type figure. He feels he is seen as their authority, but in a softer light than that of their schoolteacher. With some children not having a grandparent, this relationship is especially treasured.

Proctor, who serves in Beach Club with his wife, encourages everyone to get out and volunteer. “You’ll find it has more benefits than you realize,” he said.

Probation Officer to Surf Team Leader from KiDs Beach Club on Vimeo.

Your support of KiDs Beach Club® September 19 on North Texas Giving Day will help us continue sharing the Light of Jesus Christ in public schools. For more information and to donate, click here. Or you can text "Bibles" to 444-999.