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Feature in AMSA’s New Physician Magazine

admin — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:11:19 +0000

In 2006 Sonia Sosa approached Better World Books about starting a book drive with AMSA (the American Medical Student Association) to support global literacy efforts in Africa through the non-for-profit organization, Books for Africa . At the ’06 National Convention this drive raised 500 books in just a few days. Michael A. Casey succeeded Sonia in her position and saw the opportunity to take her dream and build upon it. During the months to come he would turn her efforts into a nation wide book drive that spanned the country with drives at 28 schools and an additional 10,500 books collected. Thanks to all the books AMSA has collected Books for Africa can fund the shipment of 30,000 books to Africa , enough to fill 15 schools!

These book drives are truly making a difference in the lives of impoverished people. Books collected in a Better World Books /AMSA drive will either be sold to raise much-needed funding for Books for Africa , or they will be sent to their collection center for shipping overseas. Pat Plonski, Executive Director, Books for Africa , notes, “By increasing African literacy, we decrease African poverty. Every book donated by a student or a bookstore puts us that much closer to ending the African book famine.”

Better World Books has provided $3420 to AMSA chapters, and has allocated $1056.75 for a travel scholarship to Africa . The hope is to make improving literacy in Africa an everyday, every chapter effort that expands each year. With increasing book collections we hope to have a growth of this fellowship to fund not only travel but support promising students in their development of an on the ground literacy initiative in Africa.

To read the entire article pick up a copy of December’s New Physician Magazine or visit this link, www.amsa.org/chapoff/BWB.cfm

AMSA: It takes more than medical school to make a physician

Thank You AMSA!

admin — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:15:46 +0000

In the last year members of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) have collected over 10,000 books to help spread global literacy. A majority of these books have gone to support Books for Africa and help end the book famine in Africa. Better World Books is incredibly thankful for these successful book drives and hope the new school year will bring twice as many books from the AMSA community.

I want to personally thank Michael Casey, a medical student and AMSA member. His hard work and passion for this partnership is instrumental to its success. Thanks to his tenacity and passion in just one years time one book drive has increased to 20 and 500 books have become 10,000! We are grateful to all the AMSA chapters that participated. I especially want to thank the top three collecting AMSA chapters from last Spring:

1. California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo: Collected over 1,000 qualified books!
2. University of Florida: Collected over 950 qualified books!
3. Columbia University: Collected over 850 qualified books!

Thanks to all the books AMSA has collected Books for Africa can fund the shipment of 30,000 books to Africa, enough to fill 15 schools! We are truly thankful to work with such remarkable and passionate people. Thank you!!!

American Medical Student Association Joins Fight against African Book Famine

Yanna — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:33:01 +0000

In January of 2006 a passionate young woman named Sonia Sosa approached me with the desire to have a book drive at the National convention of the American Medical Student Association to benefit Books for Africa . Her desire to save precious medical books from landfills and get them in the hands of African students triggered the partnership AMSA and Better World Books has started today. Through her promotion and hard work of the book drive she was able to collect over 500 books, enough to stock two school libraries in Africa .

Thankfully that was not the last I heard from AMSA members. Soon inquiries started to come in from other AMSA members that were inspired by Sonia’s efforts. Book drives were lead by three other AMSA groups at schools in the Chicago-land area. In total they collected 2200 more books! This is enough to fund the shipment of over 9,000 books to Africa which can supply five entire schools.

Our efforts did not stop there. Now AMSA and Better World Books are teaming up to bring this program to all AMSA members. Besides the obvious benefit of helping to end the book famine in Africa , your chapter will financially benefit by receiving 50 cents per “qualified book.” Modeled after Goodwill Industries, each book you send us will be either sold online with 100% of the profits going to Books for Africa or will be sent directly to BFA. An additional $.10 per book will be set aside for AMSA scholarships. The scholarship amounts will be determined at the end of the year, and will be based on number of books collected per school as well as per capita books collected/school size ratios. Plus, Global Health Action Committee will receive an additional $.05 for every book collected! And, as you know, Global Health Action Committee aims to uproot poverty; since economic disparities lay at the root of health problems the world over.”

We hope that each and every AMSA group decides to participate in this rewarding service project to help save precious books from landfills and help spread global literacy.