Mathew Fink was born and raised in Roanoke, Virginia.
In the 2002-2003 school year, Matt was in the sixth grade with some nine months to go before his bar-mitzvah.
He was thinking up ideas for a worthwhile effort he could take on for his mitzvah work. One day, quite by chance,
Matt came across an article about the Books for Israel Project in the local press. He quickly decided that he was going to coordinate a book drive of his own:

"Because of my love of reading and my great love and support of Israel," he writes, "I was more than excited to collect books on behalf of a community of Israeli schools."

Matt wrote directly to Jade Bar-Shalom in Israel and then began communicating by e-mail with Rena Cohen, who coordinates book drives in North America.

"Rena helped me to create a design for the book stickers and sent me some guidelines for how to run a well-executed book drive. I found a lot of my old favorite books and set them aside for donations. I then began promoting the project with attractive informational posters."

Matt received a lot of support in his area from different communities who were effectively brought together through this project:

"It wasn't long before I began collecting books from the Conservative Beth Israel Synagogue and from the Reform community of Temple Emanuel. I also received a lot of help and support from my Christian friends. In addition to the drives I was running in the days before my bar-mitzvah, I set up a collection box at the bar-mitzvah event itself and guests brought more books to donate."

Matt perused a number of flagship profiles before he settled on adopting the flagship of schools at Hof Hasharon. There are a large number of new immigrants served in this area and the flagship there brings together populations in kibbutz, religious, secular-town, and collective farm schools.

Matt quickly got into communicating with the flagship coordinator in his adopted community and adjusted his book
 

     All Dressed Up with Somewhere to Go! 
     After spending countless hours sorting through the
     books and separating out those that were not suitable
     for use by school libraries, Matt was hardly done.
     He then spent countless hours more giving each book
     a label and boxing everything up to meet US postal
     requirements.  Luckily, Matt received help from family,
     friends, and community members.
     Slowly the mountains of books became organized
     stacks of boxes. And as funds were raised for their
     mailing, these boxes were sent off, allowing Matt a
     view of his floor once again!