Bernie’s Book Bank and the Goddard School

 

DEERFIELD, IL — Jane Faynshteyn knows first-hand what it’s like to live without books of her own, which has made the effort by students at a Deerfield early childcare center to provide reading material to kids in need even more meaningful.

Faynshteyn, who is one of the owners of the Goddard School in Deerfield, recently watched as students at the learning center donate more than 1,000 books as part of the book drive that benefits Bernie’s Book Bank.

While students at the school participate in other charitable efforts, Faynshteyn said that teaches kids not only about the importance of books but about the importance of helping others. Over the past 10 years, Bernie’s Book Bank and the Goddard School have teamed up to provide 264,126 books to children in need from around the greater Chicago area.

Each year, the Goddard School, which has 25 locations in Illinois, commits to donating 25,000 books to kids who need them. With the completion of the most recent drive, all of the Goddard School locations topped its goal by collecting and donating 25,133 books to the Chicago-based book bank.

And for Faynshteyn, who grew up in the former Soviet Union and has been at the Deerfield childcare center since 2019, the benefits of the school’s participation in the annual book drive goes well beyond mere numbers.

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“For them to be able to come in and give something to someone else – just the act of putting the book in the box – is important,” Faynshteyn told Patch.

“For me, when Bernie’s came around, it was something that really resonated with me because I could say, ‘I understand these kids – they want these books.’ Some people just think, oh, they’re just books, you can get them at the library. But having your own book is so much more special than having someone else’s or not having them at all.”

The recent collection and donation of 1,066 books by students in Deerfield not only goes a long way in delivering the books to needy families around the Chicago area but also provides a meaningful lesson for the students at the daycare center.

Faynshteyn said that so many times, lessons taught in the classroom only go so far when they come in the form of words. But she said when students participate to start giving back to their community in meaningful ways at such a young age, the learning goes to another level.

Students learn, Faynshteyn said, that not only is it to learn to give back to others but to continue doing so through one’s life as a way of showing gratitude for what one has.

The school also is in the middle of a recycling event in which students are learning the lessons of not wasting what they have, which – like the book drive – provides a teachable moment for impressionable students.

“Yes, we’re teaching math, reading, and all of the other academics, but I think building character and teaching them how to be a good citizen is at the top of (the school’s) priority chain,” Faynshteyn said. “This is what Goddard is about.”