Bibles for Grads is returning to Sylvan Lake, bringing bibles to any Grade 12 student in the community.
“This is our 22nd year for Bible For Grads,” Bibles for Grads Committee member Naomi Hilman said. “We have been giving bibles out to every student in Grade 12 whether they are graduating or not.”
Despite grads being in the name, bibles are provided to anyone in Grade 12 in any schooling situation in Sylvan Lake even if they will not be graduating in 2017.
“Public, separate, home schooling - we want to reach every student,” Hilman said.
To celebrate, Bibles for Grads will also be holding their annual banquet - which serves a beautiful turkey dinner to honour the student’s successes in grade school.
“We have a banquet on April 12 at the Community Centre,” Hilman said. “Every student gets their name into a draw for door prizes and they receive a beautiful bible.”
The banquet, bibles and prizes are all generously donated by the community.
“The contributions come from all the churches and the prizes are from businesses and people in the community,” Hilman said, adding that much of the work has been done other than collecting all the names of Grade 12 students in the Sylvan Lake area.
“We are now looking for names of students that we might not have,” she said. “We are soliciting students that might be home schooled, learning online or attending a school other than Sylvan Lake.”
The work to put this event together started very early to ensure the banquet is perfect and that all students are recognized.
“We get together starting in January to do the planning,” she said. “All the turkeys are donated by people in the community and the entire project is volunteer.”
Hilman added the Christian community really gets behind this initiative in order to appreciate the student’s hard work over the years.
“The main point of the project is that the Christian community can show love to our young people and also show God’s love,” she said. “We can give them this amazing book which is God’s book. The main idea is to show love to all the kids.”
If you would like to help set-up or take down the event - you can contact Hilman at 403 887 5058.
“Anyone is welcome to come and help out,” she said. “We will be starting around 8:30 a.m. on April 12; if you can’t come then but you can come later at noon for clean up - you are very welcome to do that.”
She added, “The important thing is getting the names of any kids that might be out there so we can recognize them.”
reporter@sylvanlakenews.com