A Close-Up Look At People Who Matter : Holiday Nicer Due to Small Boy, Big Idea

For any other 7-year-old, a trip to the principal’s office may have spelled trouble--and it might have included a lecture on proper classroom behavior. But in Ian Neufeld’s case, he taught the adults a lesson--about the holiday spirit.

“I never knew Ian until he came into my office that day,” said Edward S. Krojansky, who has been principal of Sherman Oaks Elementary School for a year.

About three weeks ago, Ian asked his teacher for permission to talk to Krojansky so he could tell him about an idea he had.

“Every year because my birthday is in December I get a lot of duplicate presents,” said Ian, who is Jewish and celebrates Hanukkah. For as long as Ian can remember, his unwanted presents have been donated to charity.

Ian suggested to Krojansky that other students at the school do the same.

The idea caught fire, and by the time the Los Angeles Fire Department came by to collect the Christmas toys last week, 21 plastic trash bags--about 900 gifts, ranging from coloring books to toy trucks--had been collected.

Ian stood with the firefighters as class after class of his schoolmates dropped off their toys last Friday.

“We had almost every child in the school donate a toy,” Krojansky said.

The drive spurred by Ian’s suggestion netted only a small number of the tens of thousands of toys collected by the Fire Department during its Toys for Needy Children program each year. But to Krojansky, Ian is a shining example of what the holidays are all about. “All due to one child’s good sense of values, we can move the world,” he said.

Ian’s story is more about children and giving than about Christmas.

“He is a very fortunate child, and sometimes he needs to be reminded of that,” said his mother, Debi, who was happy to see Ian get involved in such a project. It helped him realize “We have so much, it’s time we turned around and gave to other people.”

Ian had talked to his mother before making the suggestion at school. She was impressed, she said, because as a child she never would have made a trip to the principal’s office voluntarily.

“He’s very passionate about the things he cares about,” she said. “He has a lot of compassion in him.”

Ian found an open door and an open ear. Krojansky says he strives not to appear to be simply a disciplinarian to the children. The principal said Ian’s suggestion showed that “regardless of your religion, you should want to make people happy.”

Ian’s father, Mark Neufeld, says the holiday does not have to be so much about separate religions. He has fond memories of Christmas celebrations while growing up in an Italian-Irish-Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn.

However, since moving to California 16 years ago, he says he has found Los Angeles families more insular than those in New York, he said.

Still, he said: “It’s a nice day for kids.”

Ian, who celebrated his 8th birthday on Tuesday,, has an orange belt in karate, and enjoys baseball, basketball, and reading mysteries and adventure stories. Adults who know him say the youth has an innate sense of justice and will complain for days if he thinks someone has been wronged.

“It’s not really the first time he’s had ideas like this,” said Mikki Doh, Ian’s second-grade teacher, who has noticed that when there is a disagreement on the playground Ian often steps in to set things right.

“He has a strong sense of right and wrong,” Doh said. “He has all the qualities to be a leader someday.”

Naturally, his parents think they have “a great kid,” although sometimes he can also be “a total 8-year-old,” Debi Neufeld said.

But, at least this holiday season, when the commercial aspect of the season can make those who are needy feel even more deprived, the efforts of Ian and Sherman Oaks Elementary School may have lifted that despair, she said.

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