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Celebrating life through giving
(by Erin Patricia Griffiths - July 30, 2008)
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Photo Courtesy Of The Bischoff Family
Lydia Christiano (left), Alexa Ben-Yishay (center), and Taylor Bischoff, 11-year-old students of River Vale, worked together to organize a birthday party to benefit others. They are pictured with the food they purchased for the River Vale Food Pantry with the donations they received.
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With summer in full swing, many children are spending their days playing at the town pool with friends or riding buses to camps where they will enjoy crafts and sports. But three 11-year-old girls from River Vale are dedicating their summer vacation to a project that began with an idea for a birthday party to benefit others instead of receiving presents for themselves.
Alexa Ben-Yishay, Lydia Christiano, and Taylor Bischoff, 11-year-old students residing in the township, first began thinking about donating their birthday gifts to benefit others while talking at school. “Since for all of our birthdays we have been getting presents, we wanted to do something different, something nice for somebody else,” said Alexa.
The girls decided to organize a combined party to celebrate their eleventh birthdays, since the dates fell around the same time. Instead of receiving presents they requested financial donations to help others. “I felt like we were so fortunate to have what we do have now, and some people don’t have as much as we do. And I thought it would be a nice thing to do for the other people, and they [Alexa and Lydia] felt the same way too, and we all agreed to do this whole thing,” said
Taylor .
With the idea in mind, the girls decided to split the donations between the River Vale Food Pantry and the children’s fund of a local family whose father passed away this year.
Along with the help of their parents, the girls organized a luau theme party at the Knights of Columbus on Friday, June 6, and transformed the inside of the hall into an island with decorations, dancing, and fun to fit their party theme. They sent out invitations to each of the students in their fifth grade at
Roberge
School and requested a $20 donation from their friends instead of presents. “For presents that you get for your birthday, you usually don’t really need it. It gets thrown somewhere in your house,” said Lydia. “That is what happens to me, it gets thrown around in my basement and I don’t really need it. For other kids, they might really want it, because they don’t have anything,” she continued.
The donations from the party totaled close to $1,500. “It is just like sending a message to people that we are trying to help the community, and whoever donated money to our birthday party also was helping,” said
Taylor .
The girls went beyond simply collecting the money, and took the portion of the donations they received for the food pantry and went grocery shopping for the items the pantry listed as being needed. “We had four full carts,” explained Lydia. “We each got our own and then we had another one, and we put different stuff in them. We got a little bit of everything. Cereal, syrup, pancake mix,” she listed. By the end of their trip to the store, with four full shopping carts of food, they had purchased nearly $500 worth of goods to donate.
After shopping for the food, the girls went over to the pantry and stocked the shelves full with the purchases they made. A volunteer told the girls that the pantry is always in need of donations. “She was really needing stuff,” said Alexa, “and when we came, it helped.”
The other portion of the money donated at the birthday party, an amount of approximately $1,000, will be donated to the children’s account of a River Vale family struck with tragedy upon the sudden death of their father. The fund is in place to benefit the children who have been split apart among aunts and uncles due to their primary caretaker being taken from them.
These students have grown up with a sincere concern for others and began working to help those in need with various activities throughout the years. All three girls, as members of the Girl Scouts, have traveled to local retirement homes to sing songs and put on musical productions such as “Grease.” Alexa and Taylor put on shows for nursing homes and retirement facilities in the area, with their acting group as well. Lydia has donated her hair to Locks of Love three times, wanting to share her hair with those suffering from cancer whose treatments have caused them to lose their hair.
Taylor began spearheading collections for those in need at five years old, after witnessing the tragic events of Sept. 11. She organized a garage sale and donated the proceeds to the victims. “Throughout the years I have been doing more stuff for other people, because that is what my mom and dad were teaching me to do,” said
Taylor . “I think it really makes me feel better because we are really fortunate to have a lot of the stuff that we have while other people don’t have that much,” she continued. “It makes me feel better to give to them and let them have what they need.”
The most important thing to these students is helping others, and they encourage people in the community to do the same. “I want them to know that we are doing something good and they should try the same thing,” said Lydia.
Alexa expressed a reminder of the need for service to others year-round. “I think people should think about other people that don’t have as many things as we do, besides just at Christmastime.”
The work that these young girls have done has taught them lessons that cannot be learned within the four walls of a classroom. “My dad always told me how lucky I am, and I never understood what he meant until I did this,” said Alexa.
Erin Patricia Griffiths' e-mail address is GriffithsE@northjersey.com.
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