This year, Barbara Hall and the Nebo Baptist Vacation School decided to make a special donation to a few teachers in the Nanticoke School District. “I was thrilled for the contributions. Since last year, they were in need of these items themselves. It was a big surprise and the donations will go a long way helping the 4th graders throughout the school year. We couldn’t be anymore appreciative,” says Mr. Pienka.

I had the pleasure of talking with Barbara about the donations:

What was your motive to donate ?

Every year in Vacation Bible School we have a project all week to encourage the children to give back to the community.  This year we decided to collect items to help teachers in local schools who often spend a lot of their own money to purchase necessary items for their classrooms to help provide a better teaching and learning environment.


What does making a difference in your community mean to you?

We want to be a light in the community of Nanticoke and the surrounding towns.  There are so many needs in our community and we daily receive requests for food, clothing, help to pay utility bills, etc.  We don’t want to just be a church where everyone comes to gather and be comfortable.  Rather, we want to be a church that goes out into the community and gets involved in the lives of the people we run into each and every day in stores, neighborhoods and community events.


Are you a graduate of Nanticoke? If so, what year?

No.  However, both of our children graduated from here. — Erik in 2002 and Keri in 2008


Have you always lived in Nanticoke?

We moved here 35 years ago when my husband began serving as the pastor of the Nebo Baptist Church.


What classrooms did the supplies go towards?

We did not give any monetary gifts, but supplies to classrooms.  We specifically gave supplies to Ms. Muench in the high school, Mr. Pientka (4th grade), and Mrs. Barna (3rd grade) in the Elementary Center.  Mrs. Barna served as the liaison to also take a big box of supplies to KM Smith for teachers there to share.  We gave the teachers the option to share the supplies in the box with other teachers in their building if desired.

What specific supplies were donated?

Kleenex, paper towels, hand sanitizer, wet wipes, disinfectant and disinfectant wipes, pencils, markers, crayons, paper plates, napkins, stickers and some small games for various classrooms as well as various other small items.  We basically went to the web site and looked at the teachers’ “wish lists” and compiled a list for our church and the Vacation Bible School children from that information.  These are all supplies that are definitely needed in classrooms, but teachers usually end up buying all of them with their own money.

We have a number of small JOY groups in our church (Jesus first, Others next, Yourself last) who plan to make this an ongoing project when teachers contact us to let us know what kinds of supplies they are running low on in their classrooms.  We will also be partnering with the Elementary Center in collecting canned goods and providing clothing for emergency use there (e.g., when a child needs a change of clothes at school).  We also have an annual Trunk or Treat event for the entire community each year on Halloween where 35-40 cars are gathered in our church parking lot, distributing candy, hot dogs, popcorn, small toys and cotton candy.  We also have an annual Clothing Giveaway in early November (Nov. 11 this year) where members of the community can come to get clothes with no charge.