Some days she is making a whale out of black trash bags. Some days she is turning the gym into a putt putt golf course through the Bible or creating a life-size version of the board game Clue. Other days she’s taking a group of retirees on a surprise daytrip or arranging for a camel to attend Vacation Bible School.

For Julie Townley, program director at Hawkins United Methodist Church, every day truly is different.

“Most of the time, it’s hands on, and that’s the way I like it,” she said. “Y’all know I get paid to paint. I get paid to putt putt.”

She said she spends about 80 percent of her job focusing on children through the sixth grade and the other 20 percent on programing for the church’s retirees.  She spent Thursday in her office sending out cards to those who missed Sunday school to tell them she had a part for them in the upcoming Christmas play and spent Friday scouting out a location for the next mystery trip for retirees.

“I very seldom spend an entire day at my desk,” she said.

She started working in the Hawkins preschool in 1983, moving up the ranks to preschool director and now program director for the past 12 years. It’s a far cry from her college major in aviation, but she said she started working with preschool when she moved here and never looked back.

“God sent me this way, and that’s where I needed to be,” she said.

Townley is involved in anything child oriented at the church.

“That’s my passion to work with kids of all ages, to make sure they’re getting a Christian foundation,” she said.

The church’s Trike Night and Market Place Vacation Bible School are two of her favorite programs, she added, because they incorporate the outside community, creating outreach opportunities.

“To me those are the best programs, when you’re serving the needs of community children,” she said. “I love it. I love getting to watch people interacting and connecting with each other. From that, we find a way to connect to God, and it’s like that’s what I’m supposed to do — be a messenger,” she said.

“Anything we do is open to everyone, to the community. I never know who might come or might be touched by something that we do.”

Her involvement with children extends beyond her position at the church. When her children were young, she volunteered to read to classes dressed as children’s book character Amelia Bedilia. And that extended long after her children graduated from high school.

“I did that for 20 years. I haven’t done it in the last couple, but I did it for 20 years. It was just something to do with the kids,” she said. “I still have the costume — just in case.”