Crafted with purpose
St. Paul member Andrea Weter has been bringing creativity, faith, and service to St. Paul’s Vacation Bible School (VBS) for over a decade. Here’s the woman behind the felt, fabric, and fun.
Andrea’s mind is on summer and has been for a few months already. While most people are making travel plans, she’s reading Bible stories, flipping through lesson plans, and scribbling random ideas in a notebook — letting everything simmer until the right project comes together.
“I always start planning for Vacation Bible School around about spring break each year,” she said with a laugh. “I get really eager. I take notes, I jot down random thoughts and ideas here and there. I poke around on Pinterest. Then I lose sleep figuring it out.”
That dedication has shaped VBS crafts at St. Paul for many years. Andrea — a first-grade teacher at Wilson Elementary — first picked up a glue stick at a craft station in her dad’s tiny church in Freeport, Illinois, back in middle school. By her senior year, she was basically running it.
When she moved to the Quad Cities and found St. Paul, she showed up one spring, offered to help, and never really stopped. What started as volunteering at the craft station eventually grew into leading both crafts and service projects — a role she’s made entirely her own.
The bar she sets for herself isn’t small. Every project has to have a purpose — something useful, something tied directly to the Bible story, something that will have an impact on the kids.
“It’s not a competition but, I feel like every year I need to outdo what I did the year before,” she said. “I feel like I’ve fulfilled my purpose in the world when kids get to experience creativity, happiness, and faith — all in the same moment.”
One of her favorite projects: a superhero costume, with new pieces built each day, had kids buzzing. Another standout featured wooden walking sticks and windchimes — her dad and a neighbor had recently cut down some trees, so Andrea decided to recycle the wood into something the kids would keep forever. An intergenerational activity day had kids and older adults playing games and crafting together.
A point of pride for Andrea is helping to introduce the meal packaging service project with Kids Against Hunger — a tradition that has stuck ever since she first proposed it years ago.
“I’d done a meal packaging with my mom,” she said, “I proposed it here and that’s been a staple ever since.”
Her husband John also volunteers in a VBS classroom each year, and this summer, their four-year-old son Elias will experience VBS for the first time — something Andrea finds meaningful.
“John and I volunteering together sets a good example,” she said. “It shows Elias that this is part of our life. This is what we do, who we are. This is why we’re here.”
She’s not planning to slow down anytime soon. This year, she’s already deep in thought on one particular challenge: one of the daily themes centers on the Lord’s Prayer, and she’s been wrestling with an abstract art project to match it.
With volunteers helping make VBS happen each year, Andrea is far from alone. Many volunteer hands come together to make the week a memorable and magical experience for kids of all ages.
