Cynics who doubt that one person can make a difference haven’t met Samantha Lomeli.
The 14-year-old Berkeley girl pledged at her bat mitzvah last year to help others and she clearly hasn’t forgotten her word.
Since last summer, Samantha has tutored public school students, spearheaded a drive that collected more than 1,400 books for an East Oakland school and produced a video yearbook for a group of kindergartners.
“My parents always taught me it was important to be involved in other people’s lives and not just my own,” said Samantha.
Though modest about her contributions, Samantha’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed.
In May, the 8th grader at Oakland’s Bentley School was given the Kids Make a Difference Award for distinguished service by the Bay Area Discovery Museum. The award, handed out to one youngster from each of five Bay Area counties, included $250 for the recipient and $100 for the charity of their choice. Samantha donated hers to a literacy program at Children’s Hospital in Oakland.
Irving Lubliner, the dean of students at Bentley’s middle school and Samantha’s teacher in an honors algebra class, nominated Samantha for the award. He said the choice was easy.
“She’s an outstanding student and yet she finds the time to extend herself to help other people and she does this consistently and in a way that I felt truly deserved recognition,” said Lubliner.
A passionate reader, Samantha dedicated her April 1999 bat mitzvah at Congregation Beth El in Berkeley to improving literacy among Hispanic children.
“I realized that I’m incredibly privileged,” she said. “Some people aren’t as privileged as I am.”
Beth El Rabbi Ferenc Raj said Samantha has shown herself to be a natural leader. “She is someone who is not very loud, but at the same time, a leader who inspires others to emulate her,” he said.
Samantha said she was overwhelmed by the support of friends and relatives who attended her bat mitzvah and decided that “I should in turn do something for other people.”
The daughter of Marilynn Aiches and Leo Lomeli, Samantha’s interest in promoting literacy for Spanish-speaking youngsters stems in part from the fact that her father is Mexican American. Last August, she tutored first-graders at Horace Mann Elementary School in Oakland for whom English was a second language.
“It was a fantastic experience, very rewarding,” she said. “I really felt like I was making a difference. It really inspired me to keep going.”
And keep going she did. While cleaning out her old books at home last fall, Samantha came up with the idea of donating them to Horace Mann students. Few of the children could afford books of their own and she’d noticed that the school itself needed texts.
“I had this huge pile of all these books I loved to read,” she said. “I thought my friends probably had them, too. If we could be able to give them books, they could have their own personal library.”
She pitched the idea to school administrators at her private school. When she got a green light, Samantha went to work.
Lubliner recalls how almost overnight Samantha had put up posters and set out collection bins around the Bentley campus. “It was really a one-person effort,” he recalled. “She did this all by herself.”
The effort paid off. Within five days, Samantha had collected 1,429 books for Horace Mann students. “They were very, very, very appreciative,” said Samantha. “That was a really fantastic feeling.”
This year, Samantha and two classmates have been tutoring third graders at Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley.
A straight-A student, Samantha also decided to do something special for the kindergarten class at Bentley. She and some classmates videotaped each youngster through the year and have now edited their efforts into a video yearbook for that class.
The idea came to Samantha one day when she was thumbing through her own yearbook and decided how much more interesting a video would be than simply photos.
After filming, editing and production, Samantha now is selling copies of the video. She generated a small profit, which she plans to donate to Bentley’s video class.
Samantha admits that her volunteer projects have cut into studying time, but says, “I just worked harder on homework on the weekends.”
As for her plans, Samantha will go to Camp Tawonga this summer and will attend College Preparatory School in Oakland in the fall. She wants to do more tutoring at Horace Mann. And, she adds, “I’m sure there’s something in the future, but I haven’t really thought of it yet.”