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Photograph by Sarah Gaffney
Page Turner: Campbellite Lisa Neinchel, 13, discovered a way to share her love of reading with others.
Public Citizen
A Novel Way to Celebrate
Lisa Neinchel turned her bat mitzvah into a book drive--and collected 1,272 books
By Sarah Gaffney
When most 13-year-olds are out scouring the mall for new clothes, Lisa Neinchel is likely to be found at her Campbell home engrossed in her homework or curled up with a Steinbeck novel.
The literature-loving eighth-grader just celebrated her bat mitzvah, a rite of passage in the Jewish faith that recognizes a 13-year-old girl's entrance into adulthood.
"It's just sort of a celebration of my turning 13," explains Neinchel, who attends Shir Hadash synagogue in Los Gatos.
But the teenager and her mother, Nancy, a schoolteacher, wanted to do something unique for this once-in-a-lifetime party. In their research they came across the Jewish tradition of tzedakah--the Hebrew word for compassionate charity--which is one of the principal tenets of Judaism. Somehow, Neinchel wanted to incorporate the concept into her bat mitzvah service.
"My mom had this book on bat mitzvahs. ... In the book it said that many people like to do good deeds for their bat mitzvah," recalls Neinchel. "I wanted to do something that connected with me. ... I love books and I love kids so I asked people to bring children's books to the service ... and there were a lot of books."
There were more than just a lot of books; there were boxes and boxes of new and used children's books that filled the family's home for months. When all the books were finally counted, they totaled 1,272--a generous and surprising collection from the 200 people the Neinchel family invited to the bat mitzvah.
"I didn't know what to expect," says Neinchel. "Then you see all these books and the satisfaction is that most of them were just sitting in people's houses. They weren't using them, they were old, they weren't being read."
Neinchel, who hopes to be a pediatrician, donated the books to WATCH, a local shelter for battered women and their children.
"It was great to drop them off at the shelter and know that they'd get used," she says. "They had so few books there. It feels really good to give back."
"Lisa reads anything anywhere and did so early," says Lisa's dad, Norman. "She recognizes the benefits of learning to read and being read to. ... That's why she had the idea for books. ... It was all her idea to get some underprivileged kids into books."
Neinchel, who continued to receive book donations long after her bat mitzvah, was so inspired by the success of her book drive that she hopes to collect more books for shelter kids.
"It makes me really motivated to do more," says the teen. "I want to start something at the synagogue, at my mom's school and maybe my school. It feels good."
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Campbell, California
