The Conscious Capitalism movement continues to attract influencers who are deeply committed to the transformation of business to a conscious model. To be conscious means to be awake. Conscious Businesses generate value for all of their stakeholders (including the planet) not because it is politically correct to do so but because it is the ultimate path to long-term competitive advantage. Conscious Business Leaders acknowledge that profit is one of the the important purposes of business…..but not the sole purpose; they reject a zero sum, trade off orientated view of business and look for creative, synergistic, win-win approaches that offer multiple kinds of value simultaneously to all stakeholders.

Corporations are probably the most influential institutions in the world, and yet many people do not believe that they can be trusted. Instead corporations are widely perceived as greedy, selfish, exploitative, uncaring – and interested only in maximizing profits.

Conscious Capitalism is a philosophy based on the belief that a more complex form of capitalism is emerging that holds the potential for enhancing corporate performance while simultaneously advancing the quality of life for billions of people. The Conscious Capitalism movement challenges business leaders to re-think why their organizations exist and to acknowledge their company’s role in the interdependent global marketplace.

Conscious Capitalists are unapologetic advocates for the free markets, entrepreneurship, competition, freedom to trade, property rights, freedom to contract, and the rule of law. They recognize that these are essential elements of a healthy, functioning economy, as are trust, compassion, collaboration, and value-creation.

Any meaningful transformation (of business to a conscious model) must incorporate a system-wide perspective that recognizes free markets and entrepreneurship as essential elements of a healthy economy, along with trust, collaboration and value-creation.

It was great to be able to introduce the story of Better World Books to this group of CEO’s and thought leaders and to hear, unequivocally, how much our core business model truly represents the kind of Conscious Business this movement is looking to create. I will continue to engage with the leadership of the Conscious Capital Movement and ensure that Better World Books is well represented….and well understood…..within this community.

• We are donating over 135,000 Childrens’ books per month now….a pace of well over 1.5M million books per year….and growing.  Tens of thousands of books have been distributed through the Americans Feeding Americans Campaign.  The campaign was developed in response to our nation’s economic downturn and with a goal of reaching 200,000 families through 70 cities by the end of 2010.  Our books are making a difference in the lives of citizens who never thought they would end up in food lines….and so far the books have been distributed (placed right in the box along with the food) to approximately 40 cities in 22 states.
• We are also participating in a national program entitled The Hygiene Box Program…..here our Childrens’ books are being placed in boxes along with hygiene products and also being distributed throughout the United States.  The results so far:  tens of thousands of books distributed to 184 cities in 39 states.
• Our Childrens’ books donations are also being distributed locally.  In 2010 alone, we have distributed more than 14,000 books to over 2,000 Indiana and Michigan-based teachers who have visited the Teacher Store in nearby Elkhart, Indiana, where teachers can come in and get free books for their classrooms.  The need for these books is greater than ever in Indiana and Michigan schools as budgets have been drastically cut over the past two years and more are anticipated.  In these tough economic times, schools frequently find themselves unable to provide some of the basic tools for learning.  Studies show that teachers spend an average of $500 to $1,200 out of pocket to provide books, materials and supplies for their students.  The teachers visiting the Teacher Store know full well that the books they now have access to were generously donated by Better World Books.
• We recently donated thousands of Childrens’ books to four primary schools in South Bend in partnership with the University of Notre Dame’s Women’s Basketball team and their “Spirit of Giving” Outreach Program.
• We donated books to the South Bend/Mishawaka Boys and Girls Club Literacy Room.
• Mishawaka-based Better World Books employees raised over $1,000 for South Bend Schools in a Truck Pull contest.

The list goes on and on…too many of these impact stories to tell in this space.  From South Bend/Mishawaka and Atlanta (our “home turfs”) to serving children and families across the United States and around the world….we have found a home for over 3.3 million books donated to date.  And we are just getting started…..

So in addition to the almost $9M in cash we have raised for our non-profit literacy partners (great organizations like Room to Read; The National Center for Family Literacy; The Prison Book Program; Worldfund; Books for Africa; Invisible Children; R.E.A.D.; The Robinson Learning Community Center; The Cooperative for Education; Plan USA) and our thousands of library clients (institutions like Houston Public Library; District of Columbia Public Library; Gwinnett County Library System; Cleveland Public Library; The University of Michigan Libraries; Brooklyn Public Library System; San Diego County Library; Baltimore County Public Library; Howard County Library; Queens Borough Public Library; Colorado Library Consortium; The Ohio State University Thompson Library)……we challenge ourselves every day to re-use books…find homes for them…..and keep them out of landfills.

Fighting……to bring books to the world.  Fighting….to promote and support a fundamental right to literacy and education for every human being.

We are…….Better World Books.

**UPDATE – FEBRUARY 19TH, 2010 – PLEASE NOTE – VOTING HAS ENDED**

I get asked a lot of questions about our mission, our business model and our industry, so it was certainly refreshing on a cold, crisp morning this past January to have someone ask “Why literacy for children?  Why focus our literacy efforts on them?  Why do you value reading and literacy efforts for children?”  You can hear some of my thoughts on this in a video that was recently produced to help support childhood literacy efforts here in the state of Georgia.

That day, I joined a group of Georgia based CEO’s and university presidents in a friendly competition to draw attention to childhood literacy efforts and had a great experience.  I went to Premier Academy where I met with Gladys Gore, her staff and about twenty or so four year-olds for whom I had the pleasure of reading several books. There are few joys that match seeing a story come to life in the eyes and smiles and laughter of children!  Starting with The Very Hungry Caterpillar and right on through 3 or 4 books I read to the children that morning, their enthusiasm and love for learning through reading…..and all the new worlds this opens up for them…..is not only contagious but worth every minute of our collective efforts to champion.

I serve on the Board for the Ferst Foundation for Childhood Literacy here in Georgia.  The mission:  Provide books for local communities to prepare all Georgia pre-school children for reading and learning success, regardless of income levels.”  “For the Love of Reading” is available to children residing in Georgia and provides one free book each month from birth to age 5; currently, over 70 counties in Georgia are being served through this Program from the Ferst Foundation.

We still have a long way to go and many pre-K children to reach.  I certainly want you to have fun with this “CEO Reader” contest and vote for your favorite “reader”…..but more importantly, get involved in supporting literacy and education in your own communities.  Our children are our future.  Help them enter school with a solid foundation of being able to read and you’ll be unlocking all of the beauty and potential that lies within each and every one of them.

David

In our continuing series on the outlook for 2010 and beyond, CEO David Murphy takes a look at the foundation of Better World Books and why it matters.

We’ve been at it for more than a few years now and we’ve certainly had to make some course corrections along the way…as any good company does.  In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I am so proud of the strong foundation we have to stand on.  Sure it’s about technology and infrastructure so I’ll talk to that first, but it’s really about so much more than that.

TECHNOLOGY & INFRASTRUCTURE – We have invested millions of dollars in building out a superior technology footprint….and we are getting smarter everyday in understanding the value of a used book and how that will benefit our customers.  We have developed core competencies in Logistics, Analytics, Web Dev, Operations, Book Acquisitions and so much more……and it should continue to show up in the quality and breadth of our book selection, the overall buying experience of our customers, our pricing, delivery, customer care…..everything as seen through the eyes of our customers.

PARTNERSHIPS, TRANSPARENCY & TRUST – We have thousands of individuals, groups, institutions who provide us books…..tens of thousands per day.  They believe in us, in our ability to generate consistent levels of funding for our non-profit literacy groups and library partners.  I commit every one of us at Better World Books (as I have from Day 1) to being open, transparent and fully accountable to our book donors on what happens with the books they place in our care (through a complete audit trail of what books are sold, donated or at a minimum recycled….and kept out of landfills).  We will continue to work hard every day to earn their trust.

GLOBAL OPERATIONS, INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS & FANS – We are a global company, selling in more than 200 countries.  Our international customer base (and those raving fans!) is growing….our brand is certainly not constrained by domestic borders.  Our UK operation is up and running strong and we are committed to an even better shopping experience for a lot of our international customers before the year is out.  Stay tuned…..

GREAT PEOPLE – I mentioned our employees in Part 1 of the series…..but they need another call out.  They are the best…..enough said.  Without them, none of this happens.

The beginning of the month found CEO David Murphy, Co-founder Xavier Helgesen and myself at the SOCAP09 Conference in San Francisco.  David spoke on a panel called SELLING WITHOUT SELLING OUT with Terry Mollner from Calvert Social Investment Fund and Sunny Vanderbeck from Satori Capital while Xavier took in as many of the talks as he could and soaked up some great information to bring back to the job.

I was there to run the SOCAP / Better World Books bookstore where we had a great selection of the best books on social enterprise along with the latest and greatest titles in the business world. Check out our list and let me know if you have any recommendations for business must reads!

I also got to meet some great people like David Erickson from the Federal Reserve who was signing his new book The Housing Policy Revolution and Steve Goldberg, author of Billions of Drops in Millions of Buckets.  I also got to work with some wonderful volunteers like Anne Peskoe, Saunders Moore, Morgan Springer and Purabi Thakre who really helped keep the store running smoothly.  (Thanks guys…and great to meet each of you!!)

David is speaking in a session on “pitching your ideas”. On the panel with David are:

Ben Black from New Cycle Capital. New Cycle just closed a $30 Million fund to invest in conscious companies.

Karyn Barsa, CEO of Investors Circle, was formerly CEO of Smith & Hawken and COO of Patagonia. Investors’ Circle is a network of socially conscious angel investors.

Moderating is Tess Reynolds from New Door Ventures.

Interestingly, I bumped into a fellow couchsurfer, Jon Gosier, in the audience. He’s doing fascinating things with incubating programming talent in Kampala, Uganda.

Ben says that a warm introduction is key. In this day of LinkedIn and Facebook, any entrepreneur worth their salt ought to be able to make a connection with the funder you want.

David stressed the point about building a long-term relationship with a funding source. At Better World Books, we knew the team at Good Capital for nearly 18 months before we agreed to a deal where they would invest to help grow Better World Books. Over that time, we grew a level of trust and a depth of personal relationships.

Ben says that its very important to match the stage your venture is at with the funding you need. If you are just starting up, you don’t want to contact an expansion stage fund.

Karyn says to start a pitch with an eye-catching stastistic. What is the magnitude of the problem you’re trying to solve? At Better World Books, one of our core stats is that 1 in 7 people worldwide can’t read. Another is that books are the most purchased product online in worldwide.

Ben wants to know exactly who you are as a person. If you invest in a business, you’ll be joined at the hip with a person for seven years. You want a record, starting from high school, of tenacity. He also wants to hear about the team. Who are the all-stars who you’ve surrounded yourself with?

No matter how long you are told that you have to pitch, you really have 5 minutes, says David. During that first five minutes you have to establish a story. In the case of Better World Books, the story is all about how in college, you probably paid too much for textbooks and felt like you got next to nothing when you brought them back to the bookstore. The segues to the first book drive we ever ran, at Notre Dame’s campus for the Robinson Community Learning Center.

Ben says you’re going to get a lot more nos than yeses, but each meeting is a great opportunity to learn more about your business and make further connections.

Question to Karyn – what about the current economic situation? Karyn says that multi-stakeholder investment is the future. We’re going through a financial reordering, and that is a lot of what we’re working on with Social Capital Markets. She and Ben are still out there looking for deals.

Question: what’s a “social deal” and what’s a “regular deal”? Ben says that they look for businesses that have more positive social impact the bigger they get. They’ve invested in a company that helps people get out of debt and another one that promotes energy efficiency.

Question: how do you judge risk in a social investment? Ben says that part of the question is how big can your big wins get? 40% of venture-backed businesses will fail, so you obviously are taking on risk.

This Award is being presented by the National Coalition for Literacy (“NCL”), a Washington DC-based non-profit whose mission is to “advance adult education, family literacy, and English language acquisition in the U.S by increasing public awareness for the need to increase funding and programs; promoting effective public policy; and serving as an authoritative resource for the field on national adult education issues; www.national-coalition-literacy.org.  Note:  NCL here is not to be confused with our major non-profit literacy partner NCFL (The National Center for Family Literacy) they are two completely separate and distinct organizations!

The Award is in recognition of the commitment and service of Better World Books to the field of adult education and family literacy. To quote the NCL:  “This award recognizes individuals and organizations that have made extraordinary contributions to improving literacy in the United States.  Award recipients have demonstrated a deep and sustained individual, organizational, or corporate commitment by supporting literacy across the lifespan of the local, state and national level.”

Additional 2008 award recipients include Rep. Ruben Hinojosa of Texas, The National Council of La Raza (Janet Murguia, President and CEO), and John Comings, former Director of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy.

The 2008 NCL Literacy Leadership Awards will be presented at a reception on Wednesday, September 10th, at the James Madison Building of the Library of Congress.   I have been asked to receive the reward and speak at the award ceremony and I look forward to representing all of you there.

Our baby room, weeks before my wife is due, is full of books already… old ones, new ones, little infant books, grade-school level educational books… we’ll never be short of reading material. I can’t wait to show our baby all the great books I read as kid, the ones that informed and excited me about the world, and the ones that stretched my imagination. [ed. note: Andy's wife just had the baby!  Congrats!]

The dad with the most experience (having raised his own children as well as Kreece, Xavier and Jeff when the company started), CEO David Murphy weighed in at the NCFL blog with the following:

Father’s Day is Sunday, and each year around this time I tend to look back to when my children were young. As the father of three fantastic children, I so clearly and vividly recall many moments curled up with my children reading to them, at all times of day and night…on the kitchen floor, in their forts, on old sofas and beat up bean bags, in bed and in the car.

Few moments in life can compare to the wonders of opening up the new world of language and communication and wonder and awe to your child. From those first moments of seeing and understanding new words, to now their collective love for ‘devouring a book’ — they possess the tools they need to be independent and to help them discover who they are and what they are destined to become in this world.

So, Happy Father’s Day all.  I took the time to send my own father “The Economics of Happiness” and “Go Green, Live Rich” to help his quest (to change his own life from NYC finance type to NYC finance type with a smaller carbon footprint).  One of the most important things he taught me was to educate myself to do the things I wanted to do, so I’m hoping I can help him do the same or at least convey that his message to me stuck.

This flyer was sent to all 500+ delegates attending the “Sullivan Summit” in Arusha, Tanzania.  Note that Better World Books, through the Better World Books Fund within Books For Africa, is sponsoring the shipment and that the books will be distributed by the Poverty Eradication Network (PEN) in Tanzania. Natasha Harris, Niko Tomlinson, Mary Murphy, Jaime Knabet, Dustin Holland and myself visited the PEN folks in the summer of 2006 and have continued to stay in touch with them (Mungwe and Andrea).  They do fantastic work (based in Dodoma, the national capital of Tanzania) throughout the country.

To find out more about the Sullivan Summit VIII, go to www.thesullivanfoundation.org/summit/.

Make sure to read the March 21st article in the New York Times written by David Brooks, entitled “Thoroughly Modern Do-Gooders”.  This is an excellent article on Social Entrepreneurship and there are many points from the article that connect directly with what we have built here at Better World Books.

The good times just keep rolling! Here are some of the conference highlights from Monday:

• 
  David Murphy of Better World Books helped open the general session with thoughts about how Better World Books are working to .merge commerce and philanthropy in a way that will make the world a better place. One simple way to do that…shop BetterWorld.com to buy books from a company that balances profit, planet, and people.
• Marie Bradby shared the background and inspiration for her book, More Than Anything Else.
• The NCFL photo booth wrapped up with almost 70 groups visiting and having their pictures made. Keep an eye out for your picture in your local paper!

And we were honored with some great coverage in the local newspaper in Louisville. Click here to see the online version of Monday’s article in the Courier-Journal.

Photo gallery and comment over at the original post

According to Nicholas Yang, Chief Executive Officer of Cyberport, “our distinguished and successful speakers will share their experience on how they bring profits to their companies and benefit society at the same time.  Investors and entrepreneurs will also share their insights on how to seek out, fund and build companies/business models which can do well and do good at the same time.  We believe more that more businesses in the future will embed social elements in their operation and strategy, to help create a better society for future generations in which to live, to work, to enjoy, and to dream.”

Please click on the link  below to find out more information regarding the 2007 Cyberport Venture Capital Forum.

Venture capital forum set for December 4
News.gov.hk – Hong Kong

Attached you will find the article from Fast Company magazine (Dec/Jan issue) that announces their “2008 Social Capitalist Awards.” This is the fifth year Fast Company has selected outstanding companies for their social impact; however, in the past, they have only focused their search and selection process on the non-profit community.

2008 Social Capital Award – Fast Company.pdf (1.25 MB)

This is the first year that Fast Company embarked on an experiment to look at the for-profit sector for those companies that are truly making a social impact and changing the world. Thirty one companies applied and ten winners were selected…..including Better World Books!! Fast Company teamed up with the Monitor Consulting Group and some other outside social venture expertise to apply a rigorous methodology for selecting companies that, in the end, explicitly place social good ahead of shareholder return.

Take a look about what they say about your company….it is certainly nice to see a highly respected institution like Fast Company/Monitor Group verify (again, after a ton of examination), understand (they clearly “get” all that we do and the impact we are making in the world) and publicly applaud our business model.

I like the closing paragraph to the Social Capital Awards article here….worth highlighting for all of you.

“Change the world. Make some money. Raise more money, and make more change. It is an appealing prospect. Nonprofits were born because for-profits weren’t addressing some market failures — pollution, poverty, illiteracy. Profits won’t cure those ills, but it’s becoming a bigger part of more solutions. Perhaps it’s dawning on us that the cost of capital for changing the world should be lower. Perhaps the capital markets will cut the world a break.”

It goes without saying that this award is YOUR award….each and every one of you who make Better World Books run. Congratulations on being such an integral part of not only this recognition but in changing the world….one book at a time.

I am excited to share with you some news regarding Better World Books’ support of “Green for All”.   See this from Brad Weirich, Employee Development Manager, who will be involved with this effort going forward (representing Better World Books):

Green for All, a new campaign focused on bringing “green collar” jobs to urban areas, launched on Friday, September 26th, at the Clinton Global Initiative.  The group, created by Van Jones, Co-Founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, seeks to capitalize on the exploding green economy while ensuring that the coming green economic wave impacts on more than one level.

The Green for All campaign is a bold effort to harness the growing power of the green economic revolution to fight the war on poverty.  By securing job training for 250,000 workers from urban communities for the emerging green job market, the program will provide new avenues of opportunity for those who have traditionally been left behind by the nation’s economic growth.

Green for All was launched with the support of over 200 businesses and organizations, including Better World Books.

If you would like to see the full press release, please go here

[ed: The following letter is from Pat Plonski of Books for Africa to David Murphy, CEO of Better World Books, it talks about the exciting steps that BFA and BWB are taking to make more impact and make sure the money that you help raise is going to the right places!]

Hello David–

Just wanted to show you these latest numbers regarding the incredible impact being made by the Better World Books Fund of Books for Africa in just the last two and one half months. Including the container that we just sent yesterday to Ghana, the Better World Books Fund has leveraged the delivery of 13 containers of books (400,000 books) to eight countries valued at $2.3 million. We have shipped to Kenya, Tanzania, Guinea, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Algeria, and Ghana. Not bad for 12 weeks! The establishment of the Better World Books Fund has frankly transformed our shipping operation by allowing Books for Africa to leverage donations from individuals who cannot afford to pay for a full container, and by allowing us to ship to countries never before served by BFA. Book shipments at Books for Africa are up dramatically this fiscal year, and are in fact on a track to increase by at least 50% over last year.

So that’s the latest. Shipments are way up in large part to the Better World Books Fund. About half of our shipments over the past 12 weeks have been in collaboration with Better World Books. Of course, those regular payments designated for unrestricted funding (which we receive from you on a monthly basis) to underwrite our ongoing operations are also coming in very handy.

Thanks much for all you and the Better World Books team is doing. We expect to reach our goal of shipping 20 million books to Africa next year and our collaboration with BWB has been a key element in our success.

–Pat

Patrick Plonski
Executive Director
Books for Africa

Help End the Book Famine in Africa! View the BFA Story

The health of the people of Somaliland is among the worst in Africa . This statement is supported by the fact that even before the civil war and the separation of the two Somali states, Somalia had one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world. While recent valid data is not available, the mortality rates after the destruction that has taken place in country is frightening to consider.

-One out of 8 babies dies before the age of 12 months
-Every year nearly 4,000 Somali women die in childbirth
-One out of 5 children dies before the age of five
-Life expectancy is only 48 years

In the Somaliland region of Somalia, an extraordinary woman named Edna Adan Ismail runs her own obstetric hospital and trains midwives, underscoring how women’s lives can be saved even in the most difficult environments. The hospital site, once used as a mass killing field during the civil war for independence (1988-1990) under Siad Barre’s reign, is now a haven for bringing new life into the world.

Xavier Helgesen, co-founder of BWB, learned about this hospital in a New York Times article, and contacted the hospital after the announcement of the Better World Books Fund for Books For Africa, and a container of books was received in late July.

The Better World Books Fund is designed to pay for the shipping costs of containers of books, donated through Books For Africa. The Fund is important, because the shipping costs for this one container alone were over $5,000.

The donated books will be used for the hospital’s medical library for the Edna Adan Teaching Hospital. While the library could not currently contain a whole container of books, any extra books with will be distributed to Universities in Somalia and governmental nursing facilities.

I received this today from our partner, The National Center for Family Literacy, and wanted to share it with everyone.  NCFL is doing great work and this press release…..timed to coincide with the celebration of International Literacy Day (September 8^th)……is a great way to draw attention to the issue of illiteracy in our own country……

David W. Murphy
President and CEO
Better World Books

David Murphy and I had the chance to help one of the teachers set up her classroom.  She had found out only a few days prior to our arrival that she would no longer be teaching 1st graders, but would actually have 5th grade students at the beginning of the school year.  As you can imagine, it is quite a daunting task to convert a 1st grade classroom to one appropriate for 5th graders in just a few days.

David Murphy, CEO of BWB, adjusting desks.                     The classroom after the desks were adjusted.

At the start, David and I readjusted table heights for the new class.  With only a day until school started, we helped transform the classroom from piles of desks and stacked boxes to a functioning room.  But we definitely had the easy job.  It was now up to the teacher to prepare the curriculum and teach the kids the entire year.

The trip was definitely an unforgettable experience and helps me appreciate all that I have.  It also gives me some satisfaction that what we do here at Better World Books is at the very least able to help our organizations such as these.

Impact.

It is what we at Better World Books are all about in our mission to actively promote literacy on four continents.

We partner with non-profit partners who know how to stretch a dollar and get things done.  Solid track records.  Passion that is laser-focused and results driven.  Promotion of self-sustaining, long term, scalable solutions on how to bring literacy and education to the highest at-risk communities here in the U.S. and around the world.

Impact.

Better World Books delivers it, measures it, inspects it.  We have been to Africa with our partner Books for Africa.  We have been in Mexico City with our partner Worldfund.  We see first hand what our partners are doing and how they are making a difference… one book, one library, one classroom, one child at a time.

Earlier this month a small group of us had the opportunity to get a very close look at the work of one of our non-profit literacy partners, The National Center for Family Literacy (“NCFL”), on a Native American Indian Reservation in Arizona.  Eight Better World Books employees joined three NCFL staff members on the Tohono O’odham Reservation to look closely at the FACE (Family and Child Education) Program; a federal program sponsored by the Bureau of Indian Education and NCFL on reservations throughout the United States.

Tohono O’odham Nation Facts:

• Comparable in size to the state of Connecticut (more than 2.8 million acres) and is the third largest Indian reservation in the U.S.
• Total population is approximately 24,000 people living on the reservation
• Per capita income is $3,113 (compared with more than $14,000 nationally), the lowest of all U.S. reservations
• 65.7% of the population is below the poverty level (compared to 13.1% nationally)
• 62.7% of the adult population is unemployed
• 47% of households have no telephone
• 29% lack plumbing
• 47% have no vehicle

Enter NCFL and the FACE Program being delivered at the Santa Rosa Boarding and Day School on the reservation.  The FACE Program essentially has three components:

1.   Prenatal and early childhood education:  FACE team members visit the homes of expecting mothers and provide education on prenatal care, nutrition, and the importance of reading to the child (even when the baby is in the womb and certainly in the very early years leading up to formal school).  FACE team members stay very close to the mother and child in these first few years of the child’s life and encourage the parent(s) to then bring the child to the School to begin the second phase of the FACE Program.

2.  The parent(s) will then bring their young child/children, typically age 2-4, to the School.  FACE actually contracts with existing schools on the reservation (like Santa Rosa) to provide for:  a) Transportation – mother and child typically ride the school bus with the older children;  b) Meals – breakfast and lunch are served at the school;  c)  Space – the School has to free up the space to accommodate both the child and the parent(s) for each of their programs;  and d) Full and part time instructors and all related educational materials.  The children are brought to one room for their day of learning, fun and activities.

We were privileged to meet Sandra Schafer here… the full time instructor for the children as well as her assistant, Lillian Wood.  Sandra is a gifted and experienced teacher who has taught in Poland and China.  She brings a high level of enthusiasm and knowledge to the Santa Rosa FACE classroom… and it is clear that Lillian has a very calming, nurturing presence in the classroom with these children.  All of us were able to meet the children and interact with them in the classroom; several BWB employees (along with NCFL staff) also helped Sandra and Lillian get their classroom ready for the children (we arrived the day before school opened for the new year).  Better World Books also delivered approximately 200 children’s books from its Indiana warehouse to Sandra and Lillian’s program… some of which were permanent “take home gifts” for the children at the end of their first day of school.

3.  Once the parent(s) has dropped off their child with Sandra for the day, they go to their own room across the hall with Sister Val (Valerie Beuke, from the school Sisters of Notre Dame; home province in Saint Louis, MO).

Sister Val, who has been actively involved in teaching on Indian Reservations for 23 years, is a deeply committed teacher of the “Adult Ed” component of the FACE Program… working directly with the parents of the children to help them obtain their GED certification, or simply improve their literacy skills and get them better prepared for more advanced education and/or certain employment opportunities.  We were all able to meet and interact with Sister Val’s students and BWB also delivered approximately 150 books to be used by Sister Val in this part of the program.

In addition to being able to really get to see and understand the FACE Program in action and better appreciate NCFL’s role in sponsoring and helping to architect the program, we all had the chance to pitch in and help get the Santa Rosa School itself “in shape” for the opening of school.  My thanks to Walter, Aaron, Sarah Lynne, Jacob, Damara, Abby and Geoff for the tremendous work you all did in cutting grass, cleaning and landscaping the area around the dorm (not easy in 105 degree heat!), picking up trash, getting rid of graffiti, moving furniture, adjusting desks, putting furniture together, sorting books, organizing some basketball activities during recess, reading to and spending time with the children, helping out in the classroom itself (primarily first grade class), hooking up computers in some of the classrooms, and lots of other activities over the three days we spent at Santa Rosa.

We were humbled by the experience…  especially the amazing enthusiasm and tremendous sacrifice and commitment that we saw so clearly in the teachers, administrators (Keith, Linda, Norma… and “Coach”), and staff (we certainly want to thank all those in the school cafeteria who helped prepare meals each day for the students as well as ourselves during “lunch period”).  And we will never forget the children and their parents… their smiles and warmth and sincere hospitality and appreciation for our efforts… as well as their determined efforts to try to improve their lives…  and the lives of their children… by taking advantage of FACE and the opportunities they know will only come with more education.  In so many ways, whether it is here in Tohono O’odham Nation, Tanzania, Mexico or Nepal… it is for these moments that we do what we do at Better World Books.  Better World Books will now be sending books to Santa Rosa on a regular basis… doing what we can to try and make a difference and open up the world of possibility for the parents and children of Santa Rosa and the FACE Program.

Impact.

David Murphy,  President and CEO

Mary Murphy, Southeast Regional Director of Better World Books and Erica Chong from Guam, together at the Phi Theta Kappa International conference in Nashville, TN!

———————————————————-
Mary, David, Patrick… [that is Mary Murphy @ BWB, David Murphy, CEO of BWB, and Pat Plonski, director of Books For Africa, respectively]

Greetings from this side of the globe and happy thanksgiving….no turkey here so eat extra for me…

EOTF finally help the book distribution ceremony this past monday after sorting through all the books and determining what went where…in all they sent books to 602 secondary school, a bunch of primary schools (i forget the #) and 14 government libraries nation wide…it was a huge success and publicized well…my students who live in the city and have TVs say the ceremony was all over the news…during it both mr. basil (the exec. director) and mama mkapa expressed their sincere gratitude to books for africa and better world books….and even though we dont celebrate thanksgiving here, today all of us at loyola are forever grateful as well…attached is a picture from the event…hope all is well with you and your familiies this time of year…God bless you and the work you do…peace…
–bb

In Faith and Humble Service,
Billy  [last name edited for the sake of privacy]
Jesuit Volunteers International
Educator, Social Servant
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

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