We do our worship rally at the end of our VBS time. I am wondering if anyone else does this and how you successfully make sure your children are leaving with the proper people? I love it at the end, but there seems to be a safety issue. Thanks.

We average 100-140 in our VBS, and this works for us:
After our closing Worship Rally, several of our Recreation leaders will take a microphone outside to the line up of cars. They will ask each parent for their VBS Security Card and call the names of the children listed over our sound system. Their teacher/assistant will walk them outside and help them into the car. We usually have about four men outside calling names, so it does go pretty quickly. And for the walk-in parents (which we encourage so that they can see the Drama video or hear the announcements) we simply ask for their card and get their child, as they are all seated on designated pews. Thanks be to God that we've never had a problem! One note: If you have announcements prior to dismissal, please remember to ask that the children of VBS workers remain seated. It really will cut down on the chaos and enable the other children to hear their names when called.

We have about 60 kids and we also do worship rally at the end.The kids aren't allowed to leave the sanctuary area until a parent comes inside to get them . Most we know,others we get to know, either when they drop off or pick up the child on day 1.(We get parents coming early to see our video or songs too.)This way, we see that the child is not being dragged off or taken by force, but that a familiar adult has picked them up.Hope this makes sense.

Our kids all return to their classrooms at the end of the day and their parents must report to the classroom for pick-up. This makes it easier for the teachers to get to know the parents, plus it provides security. Probably the best part, however, is that it eliminates the chaos of 100 kids running around the entire church with and without their parents. We started this a couple of years ago, and it's worked WONDERFULLY!