As a busy mom goes, I wear many hats as most ladies do. Yet, when you are a pastor’s wife you are juggling even more balls in the air.
Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy jumping in and helping my husband in his ministry also I have a love for people and God.
The church where we attend is a small one, however, everyone pulls together to get things done.
Outside of spending time and making memories with my family, there is nothing better that I enjoy than going to church and working for the Lord.
That is where I spent my weekend at. Planning and working on our fall festival.
Now when I say a small church. I mean we have less than 20 members attending on a regular basis.
In today’s blog post I thought I would share with you some budget-friendly ideas for a fall festival for a small church.
These activities could also be used for a party or even fun games with your family.
When planning these events always recruit as many people as possible. Many hands make lite work as the saying goes.
Even if you don’t have a lot of people, always delegate who does what as that will help the tasks get done in a timely manner.
I am very blessed with helpers in my home. My 6 kids range in age from 9-19.
They are always so good to jump in and do whatever needs to be done.
My oldest is married and lives 45 minutes from me but he goes to church with us. So, I count on him for his truck to use at the fall festival.
This year I had another child that was able to drive. That surely helped.
Here are 18 fall festival ideas for small churches.
Bounce House
This activity is more on the pricey side far as budget-friendly goes, however, if you want to get your community involved with your fall festival, it’s an effective way for outreach.
Nothing says a fall festival like a bounce house. You can keep kids entertained for hours and makes great fun.
When you want to catch the attention of the community, a bounce house is always the way to go.
I have to admit that while the kids were on the hayride, I slipped in there and tried out some jumping myself.
It was really fun. Yet I forgot just how much of a workout you get jumping in those things. I digress.
Hayride
When the air is nice and crisp, a hayride is the way to go. Since we are not trying to duplicate Halloween, last year we did ours in November though and it was chilly.
To avoid it being cold, we did ours this past weekend and it was not cool at all.
In fact, it was up in the 80s. Well, we get what we get this time of the year in the South. However, the day was just great for a hayride and the kids always love it.
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Corn Hole
My family invested in a corn hole game last year and we take it out to the fall festivals. Young and old alike enjoy playing the game.
Horseshoes
Horseshoes are a fun game. They are budget-friendly as you can pick them up inexpensively. They may carry them at places such as Walmart, but I purchased mine from Amazon.
Ping Pong
The ping pong table was the more costly of the activities that we purchased. I wanted to get a portable one that we could carry places without breaking down my large pool table/ping pong combo table from home. Though if you don’t want to buy your own ping-pong table, Amazon has a ping-pong attachment you can put on your own table.
Ping pong is a lot of fun for families or groups.
Knock Down Game
The knockdown game was an idea that I got off Pinterest. You can make this game yourself with some recycled cans, paint, and bean bags that you bought or made yourself.
I didn’t want mine to look like a Jacko lantern so I didn’t put a face on them.
Note to myself and others, don’t try to use plastic containers from Dollar Tree as I did.
I didn’t have any idea they would be that breakable and our paint fell off right after painting them. It was a duh moment.
Guess I should have seen that coming.
Checkers and Tic Tack Tow
Checkers and Tic-tack tow is just an all-American game. It also makes a great activity for fall festivals.
I purchased the one that is a rug. It is washable and it has both games in one. If you want checkers, you turn to the checkerboard.
If tic tac tow is your thing, you just switch sides.
Who doesn’t like these games?
Darts
Want to entertain the older ones? A dart board or balloon dart board kept the older ones busy yesterday.
I was amazed at how they kept adding balloons to the board and throwing darts at them.
Who knew that would be so popular with older teens, and 20-something?
Small Kids Darts
The little kids can’t be left out. They had their own version of darts without throwing pointy things at somebody.
I just love Velcro. It works great for so many things including little balls for the dart board.
Clown Toss
While I know some children don’t like clowns, the clown toss was still popular.
Tie a clown up to some poles and this game is fun to throw bean bags into the little holes.
Candy Corn Toss
This was another Pinterest find. However, I didn’t have my cones painted as corn.
I shopped at home for fun ideas to save on the budget.
For our candy corn cones, I had some orange cones that I had purchased from Dollar Tree.
I just recycled these for the game. I already had rings from another game and there you go.
Another budget-friendly game is created.
Pumpkin Toss
Pumpkin toss is essentially what it says. Now while I could have bought real pumpkins, I didn’t want to pay almost $5.00 a pumpkin.
Remember I was trying to cut costs where I could. I bought little Styrofoam pumpkins from Dollar Tree and painted them. I used a green pencil for the stem wrapped in green pipe cleaners.
Since it was very breezy yesterday, I put pencils in the bottom of the pumpkin as a stake to secure them down. Sorry I didn’t chase down a picture of it. It wasn’t professional looking but it worked.
Mini Basketball
https://dltk-kids.com/sports/m-mini-basketball.htm?feature
Mini basketball was easy to make. All you need is a poster board, cups, and a marker to make another fun and budget-friendly game.
Ping Pong Cup Toss
For this game, I just taped different size cups to the end of a table to make a ping pong cup toss. Then you just roll ping-pong balls down the table and try to land in the little cups. It was quiet tricky.
Little Kids Bowling
I put a plastic bowling set the church already had outside for the littles.
I had a green indoor-outdoor carpet that I brought from home.
I set the little kids darts and bowling on that rug. It made a nice place for the little kids.
Inflatable Ball Toss
This was a new and fun game that I picked up from Amazon.
Kids of all ages liked playing this game. It was also fun and entertaining for the rest of us to watch them catch the ball using their head.
Ladder Toss
Finally, our last game that I want to tell you about is the infamous Ladder Toss. This game can be created budget friendly with some PVC pipes. My teenage son made one for our fall festival last year.
All in all, it was a great day.
Fall is a wonderful time of year to get together with friends and family and celebrate. We hope you enjoyed our list of fall festival ideas for small churches and that you’re inspired to try one (or more!) out this season.
If you have any other great ideas, we’d love to hear them in the comments.
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