Lauren Rosenthal's
Bat-Mitzvah Bookdrive

Lauren Rosenthal of congregation Olam Tikvah in Fairfax, Virginia, celebrated her bat-mitzvah in the spring of 2003.  She chose to run a book drive with the Books for Israel Project as her main mitzva project.  Lauren's dad, Steve, helped in the initial communication with the project
coordinators in the US and Israel, but Lauren has already begun communicating with her adopted community of schools in Israel.

Lauren's bat-mitzvah drive resulted in seven big bags of books being sent to her adopted flagship in Yavneh, Israel. The bags contained some 550 books which were sorted out and shared amongst several religious and secular schools in the Yavneh area.

     Lauren writes, "I chose to work with B4I as my bat mitzvah project because I wanted to
     help Israel through troubled times. I felt this was a good way to help. Having an
     education is important. Reading in English is part of that since so much
     you would want to know about is written somewhere in the English language.
     I was able to carry out my book drive by sending letters out to all the people I had
     invited to my bat mitzvah.  I left a collection box at the synagogue so people from
     the congregation could leave books during the week and at the service. I also set up
     a collection box at the bat-mizvah party so that anyone who hadn't brought a donation
     earlier could do so then.  I really hope that my book drive will help kids in Israel
     very much and that they will be able to learn and enjoy reading!"

Thanks so much, Lauren! 
Mazal Tov to you and your family -- dad, Steve, mom, Carol, and sister Sara!
Thanks also to everyone at Olan Tikvah who helped donate to Lauren's book drive.