Impact | Better World Books

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Eagle Scout Creates a Library for Local YMCA Shelter

Posted by admin on 11.12.2008 at 9:00 am

As the bulk sales coordinator for Better World Books, I have the pleasure of working with buyers from all over the world and the U.S. for orders of 50 or more used books. I could go on and on about the fabulous people I have ‘met’ while assisting them in putting together their orders – whether it is the ladies book club in Australia, a retired teacher in Canada, a used bookseller in Pakistan, or the children’s second hand book buyer in South East Asia – all have their own story, and all share a common love of books.

I recently had the honor of working with Fletcher Roberts, a distinguished young man who came up with a fabulous project to earn his Eagle Scout badge with the Boy Scouts of America. Fletcher raised money locally to fund building shelves (and filling them with books!) for the local Birmingham, Alabama, YWCA homeless shelter.

Have your say » | Tagged Impact, Eagle Scout, Impact, Jill Galloway, Offline Sales, YMCA

Invisible Children and Better World Books Team Up for “World’s Biggest Book Drive”

Posted by Jack on 10.21.2008 at 10:12 am

ATLANTA, GA – This fall, media-based non-profit Invisible Children will connect students to the overwhelming crisis in Africa in a totally new way – with a documentary told from the perspective of high school students. GO, the first of its kind, is the story of a group of students that traveled into the heart of Africa’s longest-running war. At the end of the 35-minute film, which is being screened in over 1,000 locations in the U.S. and Canada, viewers will be compelled to become a part of the story’s end by getting involved with Invisible Children’s Schools for Schools program.

The international organization created the revolutionary fundraising program in 2006 in response to the need for quality schools in northern Uganda – schools that have been destroyed by displacement, rebel occupation and lack of funding due to the 22-year war. Schools for Schools uses an innovative online social community to help students see where their money is going and connect to different projects, fundraising ideas, and supporters. Within its first year, students rallied together and raised over $3 million.
Read more…

Have your say » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, Show Us Some Love, africa, Impact, invisible children, Our Partners, the world's biggest book drive, uganda

Sales Support Team Bids ‘Adieu et Bon Voyage’ to a Sea Container…

Posted by Rudy on 10.17.2008 at 12:57 pm

What’s a sea container? Well, for us it’s a lot of books. Last month we bid a fond farewell to what amounted to a massive undertaking of love and fun. We hand packed over 20,000 books bound for Cambodia. While it isn’t our first container, nor our last, this one was the first for the new sales support team, who really got to know each other in this little venture. Picture it: nearly 1000 boxes, all those books, 14 hands… well, you get the picture. And, in case you didn’t, here’s one for you.

Have your say » | Tagged Dispatches from the Green House, Impact, Impact, International, Rudy Reyes Jr., Sales Support

Blog Action Day

Posted by Jack on 10.15.2008 at 2:55 pm

Today is Blog Action Day! The goal, as their website states is:

“Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.”

So here’s my post:

Here at Better World Books, we see everything through a certain lens, and that lens is dead focused on literacy. If a woman in Africa is literate, she is 50% less likely to contract HIV. 1 in 7 people in the world are illiterate and the majority of these people are women. Over half of the eligible population in Detroit, Michigan doesn’t graduate from high school. The fact is, if you can’t read, you can’t succeed. Literacy is the first step towards sustainability and stepping out of the tangled web of poverty.

4 Comments » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, 826, blog, blog action day, Impact, literacy stats, Our Partners, poverty, Robinson Literacy Council, who we are

Books for Africa Gala

Posted by Xavier on 09.30.2008 at 11:33 am

What a night it was! David, Niko and I were privileged to attend Books For Africa’s 20th anniversary gala. We all had especially big smiles on our faces when we saw a chart with the number of books shipped to Africa start skyrocketing in 2003 after being almost flat for 10 years. I wonder what happened in 2003? Well, they hired a dynamic director (Pat Plonski) and partnered with a certain online bookseller. Now they ship 75,000 books PER WEEK.

The momentum was unbelievable – there were two congresspeople in attendance, and an address to the audience recorded by none other than Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the UN.

Better World Books is still easily Books For Africa’s largest source of funding, and we presented them with a $95,000 check just to remind everyone. BWB delivers more funding (and a lot of books!) than they receive from OPEC, USAID, or the Minnesota Vikings, all supporters as well.

So Better World Books, be proud of every day you spend working. As Tom Warth, BFA’s founder says, “the children of Africa thank you”.

Have your say » | Tagged Impact, books for africa, Impact, Kofi Annan, Our Partners, Pat Plonski, Xavier Helgesen

Better World Books Volunteers at 826 Valencia

Posted by Jack on 09.29.2008 at 3:54 pm

The SF office of Better World Books is the newest collection of volunteers at Dave Eggers‘ group, 826 Valencia. Starting next month we’ll be helping at a local SF school with college essays by high school seniors. After that we’ll be spending 3 hours each week at the center, tutoring kids from 6-18 in various subjects. Besides that, some of us will be doing more work on our own time in workshops, in-school tutoring and editing of the publications of the students’ work from the center (guess who’s doing that).

From the site:

826 National is a family of seven nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping students, ages 6-18, with expository and creative writing at seven locations across the country.

Our mission is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.

Each chapter offers drop-in tutoring, field trips, workshops, and in-schools programs — all free of charge — for children, classes, and schools with particular interests or particular needs.

826 is especially committed to supporting teachers, offering services and resources for English language learners, and publishing student work. Several locations offer unique retail experiences as well.

1 Comment » | Tagged Impact, 826 Valencia, authors, Dave Eggers, Impact, San Francisco, SF office, volunteering

Small Effort, Big Effect

Posted by admin on 09.22.2008 at 3:49 pm

I met Mulbah earlier this year in his hometown. He is a Liberian college student in his early twenties who has spent most of his life coping with the twenty years of civil war that ravaged his country through 2003. Mulbah is a persistent guy. Though we initially spoke for less than ten minutes, as I was rushing off to our next meeting, Mulbah made sure to collect my contact information so that he could keep the conversation going. Before I had even made it back home to California I had this e-mail waiting for me [ed.: misspellings kept, sic neglected]:

Dear Justin,
I am very happy to extend my sincere greeting to you, including your family members, love one, friends and the entire Better World .
Sir, you give me your call card including you E-mail address at the ALPP/ Creative Associates International Inc. office which is commonly called Bong LRC during your trip to Africa for Vision In Action, Million Books Match for Africa.
Justin, you and are got into conversation but we did not end due to your busy schedule, that is I graduated since 2004-2005, and I started my Freshman Courses at the Cuttington University, Suakoko, Bong County but due to lack of finance I drop from school and my parents don’t have money to sponser my education. […]

It’s Mulbah [redacted].

He wanted to know if I could help him find a scholarship to continue his study of economics at Cuttington University – one of the schools that has received books through the partnership between Better World Books, USAID, and Vision In Action. Though I did not have the personal means to help him pay for college I wanted to find a way to help him continue his education.

1 Comment » | Tagged Impact, books for africa, economics, Impact, justin brandon, liberia, students

Escola Estrela do Mar (Starfish School)

Posted by admin on 08.29.2008 at 9:59 am

[The following is an account of the Better World Books trip to Brazil to meet with one of our literacy partners: Worldfund.]

Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf’s edge and the beach. Back and forth this person went. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.

The man was struck by the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached, the person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.

He came up to the person and said, “You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can’t possibly make a difference.” The person looked at the man. He then stooped down and picked up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man and said, “It sure made a difference to that one!”

This is the story that inspired the name for David Leiners’ Starfish School (Escola Estrela do Mar for our Portuguese speaking friends) outside of Maceio Brazil. It also serves as the perfect metaphor for what is happening at this remarkable place. While it would be impossible to help every child in this area, the Starfish School sure is making a difference for every child that walks through the door.

Driving through the slums outside of Maceio you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the sheer poverty surrounding you–shacks stacked on top of one another like Legos on the hillside, grown men sitting on the railroad tracks and drinking beer at 1:00 on a Friday afternoon. We stop at what at first glance appears to be a beautiful and majestic bay, but upon further inspection we see that the water is so polluted that you wouldn’t dare dip a toe into the sewage infested water. As we drive back towards the school you wonder how anyone ever makes it out of such a sad place.

You wonder until you set foot inside the Starfish School. It’s a completely different world inside of these walls. There are children laughing and playing and an overwhelming sense of hope and joy fills the air, something totally absent from the world outside.

David tells us stories of the children’s lives outside of school. One child’s father had sold every possession in their home to raise money for drugs, another child had recently come to school without a uniform because that was sold as well. After hearing these stories you truly develop an appreciation for what is taking place at this school. Not only is it a place of learning, but it serves as a sanctuary from the harsh realities of the day to day struggles of just living in a community like this one.

Students must meet several criteria to gain acceptance into the school. They must reside in the area and be from a low income family and home visits are made to confirm these factors. For children to gain admittance to the elementary levels an emphasis is placed on adaptability. This means they must be able to join the program without being a distraction or without slowing the progress of the existing students. There is no tuition to attend the school, however they do ask several things of the parents. They must show up at the school every few months and clean for several hours. They also require the parents to sign a contract, stating that they will be strong supporters of their child’s education. Education cannot be a part time commitment.

Sure, the school is amazing, but why did we visit? Well, it has been with the aid of our friends at Worldfund that this school has been able to thrive. The school was started in a small shack in 2005 and now resides in a beautiful building, walled in and protected from the crime outside. Starting with 27 students the school now has an enrollment of 90. The curriculum at the Starfish Schools aims to provide a complete education, with an emphasis on health and personal development. They also serve nothing but nutritious meals at the school. During our visit I enjoyed what was far and away the tastiest and healthiest school lunch I’ve ever had.

In an area where 11,000 school-age children don’t have access to education, it’s inspiring to visit a place like Escola Estrela do Mar. These children are gaining invaluable tools that will hopefully help them break free from the poverty in which they currently reside. In the years to come, with the continued support of Worldfund, the Starfish School will be able to reach out to even more children, and make a difference in even more lives.

26 Comments » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, Better World Books in the field, brazil, Impact, jesse ault, Our Partners, worldfund

Walk Sudan Update

Posted by Yanna on 08.28.2008 at 12:17 pm

In the past few weeks there have been some new developments with the Walk Sudan initiative to send a sea container to Southern Sudan using the Better World Books Fund.
We had two major pickups in late July yielding over 15,000 books! Since that time and due to the positive media coverage Walk Sudan has been able to collect another 2000 books!

Pick up at Newberry Library, Chicago, with Better World Books and Endless Eye

In other news an official letter was sent out to Pacodes (Walk Sudan’s partner) with details of Better World Books participation in the project. The highlights include that Better World Books has committed to front the money for the shipment of all the books to Southern Sudan. This will allow us to begin coordinating the spring shipment with Books for Africa. We look forward to working with Walk Sudan, Endless Ey e and PACODES to fill the library in Panyijiar, Southern Sudan.

Have your say » | Tagged Book Reviews, Impact, Impact, Our Partners, walk sudan

Miracles in Action

Posted by admin on 08.26.2008 at 10:21 am

A note to us from Miracles in Action:

Last week the Florida teacher volunteers returned from Guatemala, where they implemented a teacher training project that focuses on reading. Your Better World books were a big part of the supplies we delivered and taught the rural Guatemalan teachers how to best use in teaching the students to read. This Saturday we are having a planning meeting to discuss the future of this project. It has worked well in two rural schools (both built with funds from Miracles in Action), and now we are ready to take the program to other schools. Of course we need lots of books. I will send you a few photos of the kids reading the books you shipped. Your staff may enjoy seeing how their efforts have benefited some very poor children, who are totally grateful for the blessing of books.

Many thanks,

Penny
Founder/President
Miracles In Action, a 501(c)(3) non-profit
www.MiraclesInAction.org