Daughter of Operation inventor donates games to child-focused nonprofit
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Lisa Spinello watches as 16-year-old Mariyah plays Operation, which she says is her favorite game.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Getting a game of operation ready to play are Lisa Spinello and her children, Hailee and Braeden Ballintine. Watching is Syney Napierkowski, Child’s Way education coordinator.
Child's Way daycare program youngsters Deylon, left, and Jackson join Sydney Napierkowski, education coordinator, in getting ready to give Operation a try.
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Lisa Spinello, right, and Sydney Napierkowski help 6-year-old Jackson try Operation.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
John Spinello invented Operation in 1963.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Watching as 16-year-old Mariyah plays Operation are Lisa Spinello and her children, Braeden and Hailee Ballintine.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Hailee Ballintine, left, Susie Thorn, Child’s Way systems admininstrator, help 12-year-old Deylon give Operation a try.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Sydney Napierowski, with 6-year-old Jackson, is all smiles about the Operation donation.
The board game Operation is so popular Lisa Spinello has met only one person who hadn’t played it, and that was someone from another country who apparently wasn’t all that familiar with American culture.
And Spinello has discussed the game with plenty of people. Her father, after all, invented it.
In 1963, John Spinello was an industrial design student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign whose class was given an assignment of coming up with a new game or toy.
“He wanted to make a game, and his inspiration was when he was 3 years old and he stuck a needle in an electrical socket, and got zapped,” his daughter said. “So that’s the feeling he wanted to duplicate.”
Many know that feeling, and thanks to Lisa Spinello, players at the Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center in Bloomfield can experience it, too.
She joined her daughter and son, Hampton Township School District students Hailee and Braeden Ballintine, in visiting the center Dec. 23 to present 10 Operation sets, all autographed by her father.
Chief operating officer Stacy Schesler welcomed the donation, which will benefit the Child’s Way daycare, pediatric specialty hospital and adoption programs offered by the nonprofit organization.
“We use these games to improve fine motor skills with the kids,” she said. “Anyone who receives occupational therapy, they will use those as a tool to improve being able to pick up small objects.
“With our adoption and foster care program, they’ll use these games to kind of break the ice with children, being able to play a game while having a conversation with them, and doing some therapy and counseling,” she continued. “We’ll use them also for any of the siblings who stay here on-site with the patients who are in the hospital.”
During the visit by Lisa Spinello and her family, some of the youngsters in Child’s Way, a program for medically fragile children, took them up on the offer to give Operation a try. One of them, 16-year-old Mariyah, called it her favorite game.
“Are you sure they didn’t tell you to say that?” Lisa asked, as they laughed at Mariyah’s buzzes and cheered her successful removals of various toy body parts: “That was a good one!”
John Spinello’s story could have gone better, according to his daughter:
“Once the class was over, he threw the prototype in his locker. And a friend of his said, ‘Hey, you should bring that to Marvin Glass.’ He was a really big toy distributor in Chicago.”
Indeed, Chicago-based Marvin Glass and Associates was a major player in the world of toy and game development, and Mr. Glass (1914-1974), himself, greeted Mr. Spinello.
“He’s like, ‘I love it. I love it. Here’s $500.’ My dad said, ‘Give me a job when I graduate,'” Lisa reported. “Well, my dad barely got the $500 and never got the job.”
Glass, meanwhile, sold Operation to Milton Bradley, and the game still is produced by Hasbro 54 years after its introduction.
As evidenced by the Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center donation, John Spinello likes to lend his good name to good causes.
“He just did a ribbon cutting at a new hospital that opened in Florida,” his daughter said. “He was there signing games and helping out.”
In Pittsburgh, Lisa’s children were able to have a fulfilling philanthropic experience.
“I love watching kids receive gifts: their faces, their surprise, and they’re happy,” Hailee said.
To which Braeden added:
“It’s better to give than receive.”