In January
of 2006 a passionate young woman named Sonia Sosa approached me with the desire
to have a book drive at the National convention of the American Medical Student
Association to benefit Books for Africa. Her
desire to save precious medical books from landfills and get them in the hands
of African students triggered the partnership AMSA and Better
World Books has started today. Through her promotion and hard work of the
book drive she was able to collect over 500 books, enough to stock two school
libraries in Africa.
Thankfully
that was not the last I heard from AMSA members. Soon inquiries started to come
in from other AMSA members that were inspired by Sonia’s efforts. Book drives
were lead by three other AMSA groups at schools in the Chicago-land area. In
total they collected 2200 more books! This is enough to fund the shipment of
over 9,000 books to Africa which can supply
five entire schools.
Our efforts
did not stop there. Now AMSA and Better World Books
are teaming up to bring this program to all AMSA members. Besides the obvious
benefit of helping to end the book famine in Africa,
your chapter will financially benefit by receiving 50 cents per “qualified
book.” Modeled after Goodwill Industries, each book you send us will be either
sold online with 100% of the profits going to Books for Africa
or will be sent directly to BFA. An
additional $.10 per book will be set aside for AMSA scholarships. The
scholarship amounts will be determined at the end of the year, and will be
based on number of books collected per school as well as per capita books
collected/school size ratios. Plus, Global Health Action Committee will
receive an additional $.05 for every book collected! And, as you know,
Global Health Action Committee aims to uproot poverty; since economic
disparities lay at the root of health problems the world over.”
We hope
that each and every AMSA group decides to participate in this rewarding service
project to help save precious books from landfills and help spread global
literacy. Please contact your BWB Regional Director for more information or to get started on a book drive.
Sincerely,
Yanna C.
Ogilvie