While the success of the Archdiocese of Louisville’s Building a Future of Hope capital campaign tends to be measured in financial terms, the first goal of the campaign is to foster a deeper spiritual life among Catholics young and old.

To that end, materials sent to parishes about the campaign include ideas for teaching stewardship to children.

Our Lady of Lourdes Church used these materials and adapted them to create a five-day vacation Bible school program under the archdiocese’s suggested theme: “Cruise on the SS Steward Ship.”

“They have gone to great efforts to make this (campaign) inter-generational,” said Ann Pifer, associate director of religious education at Our Lady of Lourdes. “It really relates to a child that stewardship isn’t just for parents. And parents need to learn that, too.”

Nicholas K. Eve, director of the archdiocesan Office of Stewardship and Development, said the campaign materials offer suggestions for involving young adults, youth and children “so they understand the nature of the campaign.”

In addition to the “Cruise on the SS Steward Ship” program, the campaign also has included suggestions for a poster contest, which some parishes have already conducted. The contest includes an educational session on the campaign, and then encourages children to “express the theme in art,” said Eve.

“We’ve said all along that it’s more than a campaign to raise money,” he noted. “First and foremost, it’s a campaign to deepen the spiritual life of parishes and parishioners. And accomplishing the spiritual goals certainly involves prayer and reflection, but it also involves the whole family — creating an awareness among all generations of a family.

“For that reason, parishes are encouraged to incorporate the theme of the Building a Future of Hope campaign in a number of settings, such as religious education classes in the schools and the religious education program” of churches.

Our Lady of Lourdes’ Bible school, which ran from June 22-26, drew about 160 children from age 4 to fourth grade. In addition, 71 children in the fifth through eighth grades volunteered as helpers, and about 40 adults volunteered to run the Bible school.

The Building a Future of Hope program made it easy to incorporate stewardship education into Bible school, said Pifer.

“It has the skeleton of what Bible schools are,” she noted. “It tells you everything you need for all the activities,” including games, story time, and arts and crafts.

Pifer said the archdiocesan curriculum is written as a three-day program, intended to be spread out over three consecutive weeks. At Our Lady of Lourdes, she said, volunteers added two days and expanded the curriculum for the week-long camp.

The first lesson of stewardship — and the Bible school’s opening lesson — is gratitude, said Pifer.

“All stewardship comes from gratitude,” she explained during an interview June 26.

Each day of the camp had a different focus and Scripture readings to support the lesson. Monday’s focus was “Gratitude for all the gifts we have.”

On Tuesday, children learned that “God loves a cheerful giver.” Wednesday they heard that “God has a plan for you.” And Thursday, they were encouraged to “Work together for the good of the Lord.”

Friday’s lesson was perhaps the most challenging to convey to children: “Not equal giving, but equal sacrifice.”

“There needs to be an understanding (that) stewardship doesn’t mean everybody gives the same thing,” Pifer said she told the children, “because everyone doesn’t have the same.”

To illustrate her point during one lesson, Pifer passed around to the children dozens of salt shakers. Some children received 10, while others received just one or two. Then she asked each child to give her five salt shakers. Those with 10 shakers gave five without hesitation. Obviously, she said, some children had to turn her down, saying, “ ‘I don’t have that many.’ ”

After the exercise, Pifer told the children, “ ‘There’s enough in this room” for everyone to give five, but the shakers weren’t evenly distributed.

“There’s a time in parish life when you have the least resources and you take the most — when you have kids,” Pifer said. “The hope is (parents) will remember when they’re empty-nesters that someone else carried them” when they didn’t have much to give.

At the same time, she said, everyone should make an equal sacrifice.

To explain sacrifice to the children, on their level, she used popsicles as an example.

“There are five popsicles and five children,” she said. “Your favorite is blue. But someone else wants the blue one, and you take the red. That’s not sacrifice. You still got a popsicle. When there are six kids and five popsicles and you don’t take one, that’s sacrifice.”

Pifer said people have asked, “ ‘In these economic times, why are we being asked to give more money?’ ”

She believes that’s the wrong question.

The question is, “ ‘How do we build a future of hope?’ The answer isn’t in the wallet. It’s in the faith,” she said. “We can build a future of hope, and we have 160 examples” in the children enrolled in Bible school.