Hello Phi Theta Kappa!

I just wanted to share a little of a fabulous day I had on Monday, September 15. I was invited to the Better World Books Headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. I was able to talk to the staff about what we do at Phi Theta Kappa and they were able to tell me about the process of what they do. They were so excited and asked so many great questions about Phi Theta Kappa. They were really impressed with the levels of leadership throughout the Society as well as the level of involvement.

They also taught me a bit about Better World Books. Did you know that you can research the literacy programs they work with and designate where you’d like your chapter’s donations to go? I didn’t! I also didn’t know that if you reach the goal of 1000 accepted books, you can earn an additional $0.25 on your book for a total of up to $1.25 per book? I didn’t know that Better World Books never throws a book away. The books you collect will never end up in a landfill. In fact, to date 6500 tons have been diverted from landfills! Better World Books is having an Operation Green impact as well!

I hope you’ll keep this great organization in mind for projects this year. After all, Better World Books can help you create a great Honors in Action project — if you relate your book collection to The Paradox of Affluence to help potential donors understand the importance of promoting literacy around the world and also do the research about where you would like your books to go (Scholarship Hallmark), then take the lead to organize the book drive (Leadership Hallmark), and serve the community giving the books and the communities receiving the books and help minimize landfill space needed (Service Hallmark). One Better World Books employee suggested having a “Packing Party” to pack up all the books collected, enhancing the Fellowship Hallmark!

How lucky are we to be able to partner with such amazing groups? They even gave me a t-shirt to wear!

Phi Theta Kappa Members Walk for Sudan

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We all know that Phi Theta Kappa members are great, and we count on them to run some of our best Book Drives.  We were recently touched by a story of a group that is not only running a Better World Books book drive, but also reaching out to try to help coordinate something amazing.

Many of us have heard the plight of the 27,000 “lost boys” of Sudan, their perilous 1,000 mile walk  left more than half dead, and the rest came home to a country devastated by war, bare of essentials like clean water and schools. Matt Hoffman, a Phi Theta Kappa member at Illinois Central College, was touched by these horrific stories and moved to immediate action. Matt reflects, “A good friend of mine, Sean Fahey from Endless Eye informed me that his 501c3 had committed to raising funds to shoot a documentary film to raise awareness about the situation in Southern Sudan.”

Sean’s organization has been working with Justin Machien Luoi (www.pacodes.org), a Lost Boy, to build a library, a school, and provide clean water for Panyijiar County, Southern Sudan.  Matt wanted to know how Upsilon Mu, Illinois Central College’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter, could get involved.  They talked for a few hours that night and decided to design a “walk event” in Peoria, Illinois. That is how Walk Sudan was born.

Walk Sudan is a project intended to raise awareness and funds to build a library in Panyijiar County, Southern Sudan, a region that has been devastated by 20 years of civil war and ethnic conflict.

Matt is reaching out to Phi Theta Kappa members to help with this great cause, “I’ve been fortunate to witness the generosity, passion, and perseverance exhibited by Phi Theta Kappans and I know that, with a little effort, we can help rebuild Southern Sudan and become part of something bigger than ourselves!”

In addition to helping coordinate the walk, Matt and his chapter are going to run their campus Better World Books book drive as usual; only this time, they are going to take the funding they earn from this book drive and graciously give it to the Sudan Project!

Better World Books and Books for Africa have begun working on a partnership with Walk Sudan to help pay for the shipping of books to Sudan. Pat Plonski, Director Books for Africa, comments

“The need for books in Sudan is enormous because of the difficulty involved in shipping to that country.  The roads are very bad, and going to Southern Sudan represents a shipment almost to the very heart of Africa, which greatly increases the costs and logistical hurdles involved. For these reasons, we really appreciate the opportunity to work with partners like these who are willing to go the extra mile and get these books where they are so desperately needed.”

Better World Books will be using money from the newly created BWB fund in addition to money generated by Walk Sudan to help cover the cost of shipping. If you are interested in helping Walk Sudan reach their goal of building and stocking a library in Southern Sudan please contact Matt Hoffman (mhoffman23@mchsi.com).

Links to more information:
http://revver.com/video/698354/walk-sudan/ – our video (produced by Endless Eye)
http://pacodes.org/
www.endlesseye.org
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1177134747 – our Facebook
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2007/12/10/news/state/144197.txt – some press re: Justin’s efforts

In the picture, L to R,  Heather Dulman, Darwin Lopez, Troy Jeffers, Gracia Bonilla, Kendall Ramsijewan, (recipient of the Guistwhite scholarship) Natassicia Pemberton, Mary Murphy (Better World Books) and Tayna Hall-Harris.

Onondaga’s Student Newspaper, The Overview, has a blog, which mentions the latest Phi Theta Kappa induction. I’d talk more about it but I’ll let the fine writers at OCC do the work:

Alpha Sigma Zeta, OCC’s local chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, inducted 85 new members on Oct 23, 2007. In a candlelight ceremony, members were honored for their academic achievements and service to their campus and community.

Kelly Insel, chapter secretary, had the honor of presenting checks to Elmwood Elementary School and Seymour Elementary School to purchase needed books and supplies.

*This money was earned through the Better World Books program in which members collected textbooks that were sent to Africa. For each book accepted into the program, the chapter was reimbursed money to be used in the local community.*

Debra Baehr, Elizabeth Bailey, Elaine Baker, Michael Balintfy, Andrew Borchik, Helene Brophy, Latoya Brown, Brittany Caprilozzi, Sarah Carlson, Karen Carnessali, Christa Carsten, Christina Catalfano, Melissa Ceresko, Jonah Cohen, Mert Coskan, Sean Cummings, David Currier, Amy Dederich, Caleb Defrees, Paul Dooley, Alexander Douglas, Emily Dwyer, Franciscalenae Egbuna, Christopher Ezomo, Justin Fabiny, Christine Finnemore, Megan Forman, Kimberly Germinio, Jacqueline Goletsas, Kevar Griffin, Shelby Hall-Lorenz, Peter Hawley, Machia Haynes, William Heuschneider, Lauren Jemola, Susan Johnson, Swaroop Joseph Varghese, Terea Killings, Jessica Kline, Melissa Krausnick, Craig Laduke, Katie Larock, Crystal Lauzau, Ashley LeClair, Debra Ledford-Prahl, Martha Lortie, Kimberly Lowe, Allison Masella, James McCampbell, Sarah McMichael, Jessica Milton, William Mitrus, Jason Myers, Timothy Olson, Kevin O’Toole, In Gi Park, Peter Paynter, Edward Perry, Nicholas Pikarsky, Kimmy Radell, Alison Randolph, Mike Robbins, Robert Rudeau, Dipendra Sah, Jacqueline Samora, Cadelyn Schmid, Alice Shaw, Denise Shuart, Josh Siddall, Deborah Silver, Thomas Sleeth, Staci Smith, Jill Stellmack, Sutida Sukkrasae, Andrew Swan, Margaret Swift, Timothy Szarek, Alexis Truskalo, Heather VanAlstine, Marina Vasquez, Lan Vo, Katharina Wesel, Janet Witter, David Youngentob, Jaime Zolfaghari

“BROOKLYN PARK – On Tuesday, November 27, 2007, a newly formed partnership between Better World Books, The North Hennepin Community College (NHCC) Bookstore, the NHCC chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, and the NHCC Foundation yielded its first donation toward a new textbook scholarship for NHCC students with a $822.00 check.”<

What’s so interesting about this is that the Phi Theta Kappa group helps organize and promote the book drive in support of Books for Africa.  The main collection point is at the bookstore during buyback and the Phi Theta Kappa group has a table set up to help promote the literacy cause.  The scholarship check is given to the NHCC Foundation whose main function is to distribute scholarship money to deserving students.  This particular scholarship is unique for the Foundation because it’s distributed via the bookstore and specifically for textbooks!  It’s a great combination of effort from Phi Theta Kappa students and faculty on campus working with the bookstore and the school’s administration to build a stronger campus community, help support literacy in Africa, AND reuse and recycle thousands of books that might otherwise go to waste.  Ingenuity and goodwill in action- what Better World Books was founded upon and what our partnerships with NHCC and Phi Theta Kappa are continuing to spread.

(back) Peggy LePage, Tom Curtis, DeeDee Heitzman, Matt Cici, Niko Tomlinson (Better World Books), Carole LaFleur

From Left to right pictured are Rod Risley (Executive Director of Phi Theta Kappa), Xavier Helgesen (one of the co-founders of Better World Books), Al Gore (former Vice President of the United States), Aaron King (Director of the Campus Division for Better World Books, and the guy writing this post), and David Murphy (CEO of Better World Books).

Now I know because I am standing behind Mr. Gore, I look like I was photoshopped into this photo.. but trust me, I was there, it is just a trick of the light. If this were a court of law, I would say “look, you can see the shadow from his shoulder on my suit jacket, I really was there!”

So, I would love to say that Al Gore, while contemplating his next initiative to help the environment, heard the news that Better World Books and Phi Theta Kappa were teaming up to run book drives on college campuses around the country, keeping books out of landfills, providing funding for Phi Theta Kappa chapters, and most importantly, raising money for literacy programs.

When Al Gore heard of this wonderful partnership, he immediately arranged a meeting with us to encourage us in our good work, and then took a photo with us.

Unfortunately, the above tale would be a fabrication;  yes, we do have a great partnership with Phi Theta Kappa, and yes we have saved millions of books from landfills, and raised a lot of money for Phi Theta Kappa and literacy too.. but Al Gore did not set up any meeting with us.

Mr. Gore was gracious enough to be one of the speakers at the Phi Theta Kappa conference in Nashville in April 2007, and there was a Photo Session Scheduled where a select group of conference attendees got to stand in line and cycle through for a Photo Op with Mr. Gore.   We had about 15 seconds to say hi and tell him about our program, but lets be honest, Mr. Gore met thousands of people that day… so lets just say I am not expecting any invites to his house for coffee anytime soon.

While we were waiting for our 15 seconds with Mr. Gore, we a got a chance to meet Kevin Sharp, country music star, cancer survivor, and inspirational speaker, another one of the presenters at the conference.  He had hosted his own photo op the previous day, and now got to experience the other side, waiting in line just behind us for the chance to meet Al Gore.

So let me close by saying: Mr. Gore, it was very nice to meet you, I won’t be offended if you don’t remember me, and thanks again for inventing the internet, allowing me to post articles like this.

I hope that Better World Books can continue to work with Phi Theta Kappa and all of our amazing partners to someday save enough books from landfills and raise enough money for literacy that Mr. Gore features us as a great way to help improve the world in whatever his next project is.

The conference was great fun and inspired many new Phi Theta Kappa groups to get involved with Better World Books.  After talking to each other and hearing of how successful the Phi Theta Kappas at Pikes Peaks Community College (35 cartons!), Arapahoe Community College (37 cartons!), and Colorado Mountain College-Alpine (32 cartons!) and others were this year.  Thank you all for the opportunity to attend.

The trip to Colorado gave me the opportunity to visit many other great schools as well.

CU-Boulder had an amazing book drive this spring, coordinated by Alternative Breaks.  Brie, the drive coordinator, has handled the book drive for 3 semesters and brought in 105 cartons this spring promoting solely with e-mails and using only two collection bins!  This spring we are planning to get another student group involved and double the number of promotion methods and collection bins – Go Buffaloes!  Let’s see 210 cartons for literacy!

Golden Key and Mortar Board are planning to take the reins of a drive at CSU-Ft. Collins.  Not to play off of an old rivalry, but I think CSU could compete well with CU-Boulder’s spring book drive — they have an incredibly motivated group of coordinators and I’m excited to see how successful this drive can become.

I was also able to visit Front Range Community College–Larimer, where the Office of Student Life will begin coordinating numerous student groups on campus for a successful drive.  These groups will be responsible for varied aspects of the book drive and each will have the opportunity to table in the Student Center.  This should be a great way for the student groups to increase membership while supporting literacy!

Thank you, everyone, for the opportunity to visit!  I’ve had an awesome time meeting everyone and becoming more familiar with your campuses and experiencing the beauty of Colorado!

Sharon Darling, the Executive Director of NCFL (pictured right) & Emily Kirkpatrick, Senior Director visited our warehouse back in May.

Congratulations to all who are graduating and had it in their hearts to help others (and our environment) through the Better World Book Drives!!

Keep paying it forward!

2006 PTK International President and Vice Presidents

Flag Ceremony

Al Gore

Al Gore and the panel

BWB Crew: left to right – Aaron King, Xavier Helgesen, Laurie Lawson, Damara Catlett, Roselle Agner

The money raised from the Books for Africa drive was used to purchase a tree for our tree planting event.  Officers and members of Phi Theta Kappa chose to coordinate with the child development center on our campus to use the tree planting event as a tool to educate the young students, who attend the center, on the importance of “Keeping America Beautiful”.  The children were excited to be participants in physically planting the tree and were eager learners when it came to educating them on liter prevention.

We are currently working on ideas for our most recent check. However, I am sure it will be used to benefit others.

-Raquella Wilson

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!

Here is a letter from the amazing Phi Theta Kappa chapter at Century College in White Bear Lake, MN.  They have run two great book drives which has helped them have tremendous success at their regional meetings!  Congrats Nate and the whole Alpha Alpha Gamma chapter!

Niko,

Thank you for everything! We truly enjoy working with you…We’re looking forward to doing another collection at the end of the semester. Keep in touch.

By the way, our chapter won 4-1st place Regional Awards at our last conference. I took home a Distinguished Officer Award of our region (of 60 chapters). We also took home Distinguished Chapter of our region. We basically left with all 1st place Regional Awards. Our partnership with you was a big help in winning our awards — thank you!!

Nate Kruckeberg

I was delighted to have attended the Nev-Cal Phi Theta Kappa Spring Regional Conference in San Diego this past weekend.  What a blast!  In the fall Better World Books had agreed to embark on an initiative with the Nev-Cal PTK region to fundraise for a very wonderful non-profit organization called Bridge 2 Peace (www.bridge2peace.org), which services a school in tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka.  We never imagined at that time how successful this initiative would be (we should have known better – when DOESN’T Phi Theta Kappa exceed our expectations?).  In total, Nev-Cal PTK members raised $2,237.25 through this fundraiser last semester.  This money, raised through running book drives, is going directly into a travel fund that will pay airfare for PTK students in the Nev-Cal Region traveling to the Bridge 2 Peace school this summer.  In total, participating students will be there for six full weeks to teach English and work with students, and we can’t wait to hear stories after their return!  I’m so excited to be able to support this partnership, and hope to triple the amount of money raised NOW in the spring semester!

As you can see, we took some great pictures this weekend.  This first is of Nelioufer Jayawardana and I.  Nelioufer is Sri-Lankan born and very involved with Bridge 2 Peace.

The second photo is of Zoie Lewandowski (Palomar), Jason Dunn (Palomar), Kurt Meyer (Irvine Valley College, Advisor), Me (Natasha, BWB) and Nelioufer.  Nelioufer had just accepted a Better World Books check on behalf of Bridge 2 Peace.

Zoie, Jason and Kurt will all three be traveling to Southeast Asia this summer to teach at the Bridge 2 Peace school in Sri Lanka.   I’ve asked them to take lots of pictures while they’re overseas, and will post some on this blog when they get back.  We wish them all the best!  Go PTK!

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the 2007 Spring Regional Conference for Arizona chapters of Phi Theta Kappa.  This event was hosted by Cochise College, which is in the Southeastern corner of Arizona.  I had a great time!  The conference had a record number of attendees, and I must say that they were a very active bunch.  I was impressed to see all the awards being presented, and even more impressed that the state of Arizona has 15 5-Star chapters.  That is awesome!!

On Saturday I did a presentation, which was attended by a number of different schools.  Everything went really well, and, as usual – I got a lot of really great questions from the group.  Since the conference, I’ve been contacted by a number of new Arizona chapters who are interested in getting started right away.  I want to thank everyone who attended, and am very much looking forward to running some great book drives with you at the end of this spring semester!

Thanks for everything!

Callasandra Michaels
Vice President of Records
Alpha Tau Rho chapter, Phi Theta Kappa
Coastal Carolina Community College

The fantastic Western Wisconsin Technical College Phi Theta Kappa chapter (Beta Nu Chi!) joined the Better World Books team to run a book drive in support of Room to Read in the Spring of 2006.  The drive went well and they collected 24 cartons of books.  But they had just begun.  By coordinating with other college bookstores in the La Crosse area, the group was able to nearly double their Spring 06 output in this Fall drive (the Fall semester is usually trumped by the Spring semester 2 to 1!), collecting an astounding 47 cartons!  BWB Fall semester drives ended last week on February 15^th and the group notified me they had collected an additional 26 cartons of books- a great start for the Spring semester!

Headed by advisor Linda Duffy, the amazing students of the Beta Nu Chi chapter are going to use their Fall scholarship check to help offset their traveling expenses to the April International Phi Theta Kappa convention; this year being held in Nashville, TN.

Great work Beta Nu Chi!

The Beta Nu Chi Chapter

Here are some photos of this awesome group working hard for literacy…

From left to right is Bailey Standish, Tammy Caltagirone, Michelle Beltran and Mario Llamas.

From left to right is Jennifer Wesson and Bailey Standish.

Lisa is incredibly passionate about literacy and after I spoke with the group she gave her own testimonial about the book drive! She shared that “working with Better World Books has been a rewarding experience.  Not only do we have the opportunity to witness the vast outpouring of generosity on our campus, but also to observe its far-reaching effects.”

Additionally, Lisa gave the group great advertising tips. Her chapter is holding a raffle in conjunction with the book drive. For every textbook a student donates they will give them a raffle ticket to be entered into a drawing for a prize to win a book store gift certificate. Out of the 660 dollars her chapter earned from last semester’s drive they are giving a 500 dollar scholarship to a deserving member and using the rest of the funds to purchase a bookstore gift certificate for their raffle. Not only will the raffle encourage more book donations, it will help to solidify their partnership with the bookstore!

It was amazing to see what a few committed people have accomplished in the last two years, starting from scratch. They’ve established their first school, educating over 50 children in a country devastated by civil war, violence, and the tsunami disaster.

The Nevada-California region of Phi Theta Kappa has made Bridge2Peace’s mission their regional project. Many of the honors students plan to travel to Sri Lanka to teach during the summer, and several chapters are raising funds for the school’s daily operations. In support, Better World Books has pledged to donate 25 cents to Bridge2Peace, for every qualifying book received from Nev-Cal Phi Theta Kappa chapters. This will likely produce thousands of dollars in funding for the Sri Lanka school.

I’m proud to say that Better World Books can contribute to the success of this amazing project, started in response to the tsunami disaster of Dec 2004 by four passionate and inspired people.

Fall has hit full tilt here in Minnesota which made the trip to Breezy Point Resort in Pequot Lakes, MN for the Fall MinWiKota regional Phi Theta Kappa Conference that much more beautiful.

With 20 chapters from the region attending, I had a great audience, a number of whom had already participated in the great Spring semester drives. One of the all-star chapters, Century College in White Bear Lake, MN, worked with me to have their president, Nate Kruckeberg, talk about their fantastic Spring drive. To date, they’ve collected over 2,000 books!

I was presented with a beautiful Phi Theta Kappa pen after the presentation and got to speak with Brandi McNeil from Phi Theta Kappa Headquarters about the organization and our fantastic partnership. The presentation following mine was given by MinWiKota members on Operation: Green, showing Phi Theta Kappa’s continued great service work and ability to attack current issues like preserving the environment. One key part to the Operation: Green project is a planting of trees around the Minnesota-Wisconsin-Dakotas region; they even handed out saplings to everyone present (I’m going to plant mine in the yard of my first house). It reminded me of how well our organizations fit together: the environmental impact Better World Books has had by saving more than 5,000,000 pounds of paper from the landfills .

To cap off the day, MinWiKota members didn’t stop at signing up to run book drives with Better World Books this Fall: a challenge was made for a student to jump into nearby Pelican Lake for a $20 donation to be made to Books for Africa. The contributions topped $20 and soon enough, there was a soaking wet MinWiKota Phi Theta Kappa member (names are being withheld for the protection of one very cold, wet but dedicated member). It was great to learn more about Phi Theta Kappa and the work they’re doing with and without Better World Books!

In addition to my excitement about how ready and willing the Phi Theta Kappa members are to support our efforts in raising funds to promote literacy, I was also very grateful for the open and friendly reception that I was given. My experience at these leadership conferences has been both fun and rewarding for me personally. In Morgantown I was included in talks and team building exercises and then invited to the James Madison football game by one of the chapter members. At the Middle States conference in Dundalk I had the pleasure of listening to Sister Claire, a professor from Boston University, give a lecture on the state of education in the United States, and her insightful thoughts on the need for a paradigm change in the American educational system. It was an awesome and inspiring lecture.

I have greatly enjoyed being able to personally get to know the Phi Theta Kappans in the Southern Mid-Atlantic Region. It has been a great experience for me, and also has produced some great relationships that are dedicated to supporting our mission of promoting literacy around the world.

Thank you Phi Theta Kappa!

The welcoming smiles and sincere embraces that Phi Theta Kappa greeted me with warmed me through and through. Members from 27 chapters drove hundreds of miles to learn how to make themselves stronger leaders for a tomorrow that I hope to be part of. When they had a free moment to chat we shared stories of our families, our pasts, our hopes and our dreams. We got to know each other not only as the person on the other end of the phone or email line, but also as friends.

Everyone kept thanking me for coming to speak to them about Better World Books, but I’m the grateful one. So to everyone of the Iowa Phi Theta Kappa Leadership Conference: Thank You. Thank you for your embraces, smiles, applause, hospitality, and for sharing your lives and time with me. Thank you for wanting to be better people and stronger leaders. Thank you for all the good things you do for your community and our world when so many people today look out only for themselves. Thank you for all of your hard work, for running successful book drives, and for supporting BWB and our literacy partners. And thank you to everyone else who supports BWB; thank you for saving books from landfills, for helping to break the cycle of poverty through education and literacy, and most of all thank you for making this world a better place!

In the Spring of 2006, Better World Books coordinated book drives at 32 schools in the state of Michigan, totaling close to 20,000 books. Michigan State University collected the most books of any school in Michigan, sending in over 5,000 books. The book drive at Michigan State was lead by their “Books 4 Africa” student group. All the books collected in that drive went to benefit Books for Africa.

With over 150 colleges and universities in the state of Michigan, I hope we can have a lot of success with book drives there this year. I expect to see a lot of healthy competition between the The University of Michigan and Michigan State University to see who can bring in more books.

The Michigan Region of Phi Theta Kappa, the International Honor Society of the 2 year college, is encouraging all of their chapters to run a book drive with Better World Books this year. I am expecting great things from the state of Michigan this year! Below is a picture from the MSU B4A student group:

I am so excited to see that an honors society and service organization as large and influental as PTK is taking to heart the messages we are continually seeing in the media about the environmental crisis our planet is experiencing.

I saw the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” and watched the Tom Brokaw special on the Discovery Channel called “Global Warming: What You Need to Know” and I was inspired to take action and make an impact.  I went out and bought the energy saving lightbulbs, and I have been trying to recycle more, and think about my energy and gas consumption.  I know that it seems small, and like these actions don’t get us anywhere, but it is when a group of people make these changes, and influence the decisions of others that change really takes place.

A Better World Books book drive is a great opportunity to take action and empower yourself, your student organization, your community, to come together and take action. By leading a book drive on your campus you will be encouraging students to donate their no-value books rather then throw them in the trash.   Thousands of students have made this choice, and the result has been 5 million pounds of books being diverted from the landfill through the BWB book drive program.

“By the year 2100, in the lifetime of our children and grandchildren, our world will be a drastically different place,” says Tom Brokaw in the Discovery Channel documentary.

For the students in this country, the young people, this is our future.  Now is the time to take action.

One highlight from the article are the results of the PTK spring book drive campaign:

“192 chapters have already collected 90,000 books, which will add up to approximately $35,000 in funds for these Phi Theta Kappa chapters.”

Check out the article on the PTK website to see photos of PTK’s Garon Tate and Brandi McNeil on their visit to the BWB collection center.

Making the campus aware of the project, of course, is one of the keystones. Beginning in the early stages of the project, we sent out emails and put up flyers to notify our fellow students about the book drive. Even before the collection boxes were out, all three campuses knew that this project was going to begin soon. The time we put into the advertisement portion of this project definitely paid off. Students knew exactly when and where to donate their books, and contributions started coming in as soon as we put the boxes up.

Also, thoughtful placement of the boxes increased our donations tremendously. We placed them in high traffic areas such as the library entrance, frequently traversed hallways, and the bookstore. The bookstore location was an especially important collection spot due to the time of the project. Book-buy-back week was underway, and by placing the box adjacent to the buy-back center, it was ensured that any surplus books would be donated.

Contributions from faculty are also something that is definitely worth looking into. About half of our donations were from the college’s faculty and staff. All it took was an email from our advisor notifying the rest of the faculty that this project was coming up. To make it easy for people to donate, we designed one day a campus-wide “Book Blitz,” when chapter members and volunteers made the rounds to collect books at faculty and staff offices. The response was enthusiastic, and plenty of our people were more than willing to get a few old books off their hands.

And lastly, the most important factor that resulted in this successful book drive was dedication. A committed team of people can go a long way. We started the project, and kept with it all the way until the end. Everyone stayed positive, were supportive of each other, and were always ready to offer assistance in any way possible.

Basically, thoughtful planning, willingness to dedicate time, and a team of committed people are really all that is needed to put on a successful book drive.