Our church, like many churches, have been doing virtual services instead of our usual worship schedule. Schools in our area, have decided to begin online classes for all of its students.
Normally, we would have a Blessing of Backpacks the Sunday before school starts and over 100 children would participate. This year is going to be very different. I wanted to still honor the start of the school year, even if it is going to be unusual, with most children remaining at home.
During the Sunday worship Service, live-stream, we will say a prayer and bless the backpack tags we are giving out. Then we are inviting families to drive by with their backpacks and devices. We are asking them to hold them out the window of their car as we bless each one (with water for backpacks) and give them a specially made backpack tag for attaching to their backpack or bag. We, also, made bookmarks with our children and youth online schedule for the fall. We handed these out.
We have scheduled an hour for this and are doing it in a covered area. For those who cannot drive up, we are blessing the tags, so they can attach them to their bag when we can give them their tag.
For the tags, we try to make them as fun and useful as possible. This year, instead of designing our own, we are purchasing a stained glass picture, putting our church on the back and using the luggage tag laminator to make them. (See previous backpack for tag instructions).