Kids today know there are people in the the community who need help, Maryann Sweeney said. While they want to help, they don't know exactly how. So this year, the Presbyterian Church of Bella Vista made a few changes to the annual summer Creative Kids program. This year it's all about sharing.

While Creative Kids has long been a program sponsored by the church's education committee, it's not a typical vacation Bible school. Instead the kids concentrate on the arts for a week each summer.

The change this year was easy. It wasn't difficult finding projects that kids could do to help in the community, Sweeney said. She had a committee to help.

"This committee works so well together," member Delores Jennings said. They are also very creative.

On Monday, the kids decorated cookies and took them to the Bella Vista firefighters.

"No one ate a single cookie (during the decorating process). They didn't even ask," Jennings said. The firefighters were so grateful, they gave the kids a tour of one of their trucks."

On Tuesday, the kids made fleece blankets for a Bella Vista preschool. But the school was not in session so the kids couldn't deliver them in person.

On Wednesday, they decorated bags and filled them with personal hygiene items and hand-made footies donated by the church's knit/crochet group. Those were delivered to Brookfield Assisted Living.

On Thursday, they made greeting cards and took them to Concordia for residents to send to friends and family.

On Friday, the last day, the kids had the chance to celebrate a job well done. They tie-dyed T-shirts and enjoyed a picnic lunch.

The church has always been vision oriented, Sweeney said, and they always include children in community service work, The children of the church grow up knowing what it is to help people, she said.