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Library LEAP Grant Winners!

Posted by Erin on 05.20.2011 at 7:26 am

Did you know that an estimated 781 million adults are illiterate? That’s 1/7 of the planet. In the United States, 30 million adults possess below-basic literacy skills. And in Latin America, most children only attend school an average of 5.4 years.

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Better World Books was founded on the promise to help decrease illiteracy and poverty around the world. One of the many ways we try to help is through our LEAP for Library grants.

Funds that support LEAP Grants come from books sold on www.betterworldbooks.com. Every purchase contributes to either a specific literacy fund or goes into our general literacy fund. Money from our general literacy fund is used to support our LEAP Grants. We were able to use $75,000 from that fund to help support the work libraries are doing for their communities.

We reached out to thousands of libraries across the world and asked them to submit projects which were designed to help their immediate community. After our literacy and library council received and reviewed approximately $3.5 million dollars in grant requests we chose 6 library grant winners.

It was a difficult decision as so many library grant submissions are designed to help alleviate the dire statistics mentioned above.

LEAP stands for Literacy and Education in Action Program. Through our LEAP grants, we fund literacy and educational nonprofits and libraries for specific projects – the front lines of the fight to reduce global poverty through education.

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Shakespeare for Inner-City Youth

Posted by Erin on 05.11.2011 at 9:42 am

Can you imagine reciting Shakespeare by heart in the 3rd grade?

Robinson Shakespeare Company from Better World Books on Vimeo.

In 2008, Christy Burgess founded the Robinson Shakespeare Company at our first-ever literacy partner, the Robinson Community Learning Center in South Bend, Indiana.

Ever since their first performance, Macbeth, there has been huge success and buy in with students and parents. The Shakespeare Company works with youth in 3rd-12th grades.

Right now, the Company is working on The Tempest. The young actors are donating half of the proceeds from the play to Tsunami relief in Japan.

Not only is the program fun, it is also successful! In the English Speaking Union Shakespeare Monologue Competition, the Robinson actors won 1st place in each category in 2009 and in 2010 won five out of six. They also have placed in the top three in state every year they have participated.

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Libraries Improving Family Literacy

Posted by Erin on 05.02.2011 at 10:49 am

Removing economic and cultural barriers. Improving literacy skills and promoting healthy choices. Breaking inter-generational cycles of low literacy.

These are what the winners of the 2011 Better World Books/National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) Libraries and Families Award are accomplishing. And thanks to the national recognition, each winner will receive $10,000 to expand upon its success.

Here’s a little more info about each program. Contact NCFL if you’re a library with programming serving families. They’d love to hear from you, and your experiences can help inform additional opportunities and spark ideas!

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Speaking Out by Not Speaking: BWB + Invisible Children

Posted by Erin on 04.25.2011 at 11:29 am

“How on earth will I be able to go 25 hours without saying a word? I still haven’t figured that out (and I know some of my coworkers have their doubts), but let me tell you what I do know: The Invisible Children Protection Plan is AWESOME, and it means huge things for protecting and rehabilitating LRA victims in central Africa. So why am I participating in the 25 event? Because I can help raise money for The Protection Plan AND speak out (well, you know what I mean) against Joseph Kony’s war, all at one fell swoop! Get ready to join the movement, friends – it’s a beautiful day for changing the world!” shares Amy Clark, an Atlanta-based Account Representative for Better World Books.

Today, almost 100,000 activists all over the world are going quite to make a loud statement through their silence: the longest running war has got to stop and child soldiers must be redeemed!