To promote the drive, Golden Key created an excellent website that outlines the types of books they collect, where the donation sites are, and who can be contacted with questions.  I recommend all students interested in coordinating a drive check it out as it is a great, efficient way to share information on the book drive: http://ubcgoldenkey.org/bookdrive/.  If you are located at UBC and would like to donate books, you can find donation bins in the following locations:

*Outside the entrance to the David Lam Library
*Outside the entrance to the Education Library
*Inside the Abdul Ladha Science Centre
*Inside the lobby of the Gage Residence Towers

Best of luck this semester, UBC; your dedication to sharing literacy and reducing waste shines as an example to campuses around North America!

Hello, Abby:
I actually donate to Better World Books through a student organization at Utah State University .  As I have gotten to know the faculty sponsor/designated adult for the Golden Key Club, she has told me about the club and how they work with Better World Books .  At the end of each buyback period, we truck the books to her office for distribution to you, I guess.

This actually works out great as a marketing and overall goodwill system for our store.  We are the only store in Logan that provides value for textbooks that don’t get used again, and it’s possible because of Better World Books . I’m actually working on putting up signage in my store to advertise this.  I know that the Golden Key Club receives payment for each book that Better World Books accepts, so the value is for all parties:

- Beat The Bookstore helps students get rid of their old books for a good cause
- The Golden Key Club gets an avenue for fundraising for their activities
- Better World Books gets to change the world through its programs

If you do have any signage, posters, or ideas of how to better publicize this relationship, would you be willing to part with it?  Any business owner worth his or her salt in this world has to be involved in doing something for those who are less-fortunate, and I’m glad that I’ve got a way to contribute to a better future in a small way.  If we can do more to promote Better World Books in the store, let me know.

Thanks.
Eric
Owner, Beat The Bookstore

I have had the privilege of working with many wonderful people.  The first recipient of this Award is Whitney Ellis from Golden Key International Honour Society at Florida State University.

Whitney has shown outstanding leadership skills to make the book drive benefiting ‘Room to Read’ a reality – and a success – at FSU!!

She was an Officer in her Golden Key Chapter last spring when we first connected, studying full-time, majoring in Studio Art as well as working a part-time job. She made the decision to lead the drive on campus as she believed wholeheartedly in our mission to help break the cycle of poverty and dependence through literacy…one book at a time.

Whitney and her husband, Josh (who served in Iraq from 2003-2004 and currently the GK  President at FSU) were married in a civil ceremony in May of 2005.  The date that they set for their ‘official’ wedding with guests, gown, reception, etc. was set for May 20,  2006….little did she know when she set the date the year before, that she would willingly be packing boxes of books with Josh and organizing a cadre of volunteers the month of her wedding!!  Whitney, while studying, working part-time and planning for her wedding would come home to her apartment where the second bedroom was overflowing with books!  She was tireless in her approach to organizing the book drive on campus!

Anything that I would suggest to Whitney, she implemented…an article in the campus newspaper, a PSA in the local radio stations to promote the drive, facebook, tabling ( that’s Josh at the table), recruiting volunteers, another club to co-lead the drive,  (this semester we are piloting a program where there will be two pairs of organizations, a total of four clubs, leading autonomous, simultaneous book drives on campus), flyers around campus, working with the recycling department on campus, table tents in the dining halls, inviting her on-campus bookstore to participate and with great frustration, tried to get the off-campus bookstore to participate (met with him in person, drafted and sent a letter to the manager, asked her friends who work at the bookstore convince him to help.)…

Whitney continues in her steadfast commitment to help those in Southeast Asia, who are trying to find hope through education. This morning she told me that she was going to take a little time off of work to make sure that someone was always at the table to answer questions and keep an eye on the collection boxes during their tabling hours this week….

The unrestricted funding that is generated from all of her books to help Room to Read reach out to so many underprivileged children and families is priceless….Thanks, Whitney, for using your gifts of leadership to help others in such a meaningful way…

Spring 2006 Scholarship Winners:

0 to 2,499 students:
The New Life Foundation at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago , IL ran a drive on behalf of Books for Africa , resulting in 1,132 qualifying books.

2,500 to 4,999 students:
The Alpha Phi Omega chapter at Loyola College of Baltimore, MD also benefited Books for Africa.  Their efforts brought in 1,926 qualifying books.

5,000 to 9,999 students:
The Books for Africa group at George Washington University Foggy Bottom Campus in Washington DC ran a Books for Africa drive, collecting 3,755 qualifying books.

10,000 to 14,999 students:
The Golden Key Honour Society at the University of New Hampshire at Durham supported Room to Read through their spring drive. With the help of the Durham Book Exchange, they brought in 1,792 qualifying books.

15,000 to 19,999 students:
The University of Oregon’s Alpha Phi Omega chapter brought in 5,855 qualifying books in support of Books for Africa.

20,000 and Up students:
The Circle K chapter at Texas A&M University collected 6,063 qualifying books on behalf of Books for Africa . This was made possible by the generous support of Memorial Student Center Bookstore, Loupots Bookstore , Texas Aggie Bookstore and Beat the Bookstore.

Many thanks to all of our wonderful student groups & bookstores across North America !

There were hundreds of successful book drives last semester, thanks to all of your hard work and dedication to worldwide literacy. We excited to work with you in the coming semesters to make an even greater social and environmental impact – please check back for upcoming stories highlighting some of our best drives of the past year.

Books for Africa a “Key” Priority
Ryersonian 10/11/2006, by Izabela Szydlo

The Golden Key Honour Society is trying to help open doors to literacy in Africa .

The group, which targets top students in each department, has partnered with a charity organization called Books for Africa .  The hope is to promote higher education in the continent which struggles with combating illiteracy.

“Our main goal is to collect textbooks which are no older than five years old,” said Vipin Khullar, president of Golden Key’s Ryerson chapter.

“If you’re trying to educate people in other countries all the books need to be up to date.”

The book drive, which will consist of boxes placed in high-traffic areas such as Jorgenson Hall, brought in about 700 books last semester.  Khullar said students can be expected to see boxes out next week.

“My goal is to raise more books than any school in the northeast region,” he said.  “With every event that we do I try to get Ryerson’s name out there and show a sense of community that the university has.”

Namarig Ahmed wants to help support the cause, but the second-year nursing student said that the campaign needs to be better advertised and students need to be made aware of what the boxes are.

“I’m definitely going to drop off some of my older texts,” she said.  “But I think people may pass the bin and say: “why should we send some random book to Africa ?” without realizing that they collect a whole bunch of the same book and send it off.”

According to the Books for Africa website, since 1988 more than 13 million books have been donated in hopes of putting an end to illiteracy, which stands at 41 per cent among Africans over the age of 15.

The organization is partnered with a larger literacy campaign called Better World Books, which provides boxes and funding so that books can be shipped
directly to classrooms and libraries.  Books are sent to 26 countries, including Botswana , Senegal and Sudan.

Jennifer Hargreaves, director of Canadian operations for Golden Key, said that the campaign is not only positive but also reflective of her organization’s goals.

“It really supports our goals of supporting higher education and academic achievement,” she said.

“We’re helping students understand basic human rights and allowing them to take a more direct role in the educational process.”

This past spring, our Golden Key chapter collected 94 cartons of books to benefit Books for Africa , making it one of the most successful drives in the Northeast region. The strength of our book drive can be largely attributed to our extensive promotional campaign. Promoting our book drive helped us to do more than let people know where they could donate books. It also helped us connect the students and faculty memebers to the cause of African literacy and education. To get the word out around campus we used flyers, posters, mass emails and made class announcements. We also had an article about the book drive written in the campus newspaper.

Of all the promotional methods we utilized, class presentations were the most effective. We found that posters, flyers, emails and newspaper articles were all great ways to spread the word, but they often blended into a vast sea of campus postings and daily emails. However, when we were in front of a class making an announcement about the book drive, there was no way the students were going to miss us.

Hearing about the book drive from fellow students helped our classmates to understand the impact their donation would have on global literacy. It also helped them to understand how easy it would be for them to get involved and become part of the solution. After all, making a difference is as easy as dropping a book in a box.

The best part was that organizing such an extensive promotional campaign didn’t require too much time. Since we started promoting our book drive by the middle of the semester, we were able to exercise all our promotional options and have everything in place well before finals started. On average, getting everything set and ready to go only took one to two hours a week.

I wouldn’t recommend replacing posters, flyers, emails, and newspaper articles with class announcements, but I would definitely recommend using class announcements to compliment them. It worked for our organization and it will definitely work for yours!

BWB’s CEO David Murphy addressed the 600+ Honors Delegation, his speech emphasizing the important of service and literacy.  He highlighted his recent experiences in Africa and demonstrated how running a book drive makes a tremendous impact.

Over 85 Golden Key chapters worked with BWB in ‘05-06.  We’ll be announcing chapter scholarship winners shortly.  Here’s a photo of ‘04-05 scholarship winner Anandi, from Hunter College, and myself (former employee Fritz Gheen) during the conference.