Posted by: Natasha Harris, Senior West Coast Regional Director

Did you ever have the experience of shopping for a gift for someone and having no idea what to get them?  Well, outside of buying a book from betterworld.com, (which always goes over well) I would like to suggest that you look into a subscription to GOOD Magazine.  GOOD Magazine is a very worthwhile campaign that just had its kickoff this past fall.  Since that time, it has raised over $225,000 for twelve different non-profits around the world.  As a matter of fact, one of the organizations it supports is our very own partner, Room To Read (www.roomtoread.org)!  The high-quality magazine features articles focused around environmental, social and political issues of great import here in the USA and around the world.  Best of all - a year’s subscription is only $20, one hundred percent of which will be donated to one of their non-profit partners (you choose which one to support!)!  Check out their website at www.goodmagazine.com and get a subscription for yourself while you’re at it!  You’ll be glad you did.

With much of the attention for literacy initiatives devoted to overseas programs, many may forget the relevance of them in the United States. In quoting some recent statistics:

According to Richard Riley, Former Secretary of Education, "54 percent of all teachers have limited English proficient (LEP) students in their classrooms, yet only one-fifth of teachers feel very prepared to serve them."

The National Center for Education Statistics reports, that recently,
- More than 8 million U.S. students in grades 4-12 struggle to read, write, and comprehend adequately.
- Three out of ten eighth graders read at or above grade level
- Only three-fourths of high school students graduated in four years
- Just over half of African American and Hispanic students graduated at all.

According to international studies, the educational system in the United States functions well up to about the 4th grade in comparison to other developed countries, but then tapers off in junior and high school. What are the causes of this?

The National Center for Family Literacy is unlike many other literacy charities with their focus on illiteracy as an inter-generational and community problem. By focusing on the deeper causes of illiteracy, the National Center for Family Literacy seeks to find LONG TERM solutions that will have a lasting effect.

For more information: www.famlit.org

On November 6th, 2006 the Texas Blazers officially established the Texas Blazers Endowment Fund. Texas Blazers, an honorary service and hosting organization at The University of Texas (Austin) is committed to a "hands-on" approach to service that includes high standards of academics and leadership.  This leadership extends into the community to places like Johnston High School, home to an at-risk student body. As Texas Blazers Chairman Andrew Limmer said, “Although the University of Texas is only ten minutes away, to many students at Johnston, it is another world. The Texas Blazers want to help end this disconnect and develop a better relationship between the university and East Austin community.” 

For years, Blazers have served as tutors and mentors to students at Johnston High School in East Austin. To this end, Texas Blazers recently established a $25,000 Endowment through The University of Texas to offer annual scholarships to graduates of Johnston High School. A significant portion of the founding contribution is a result of successful Books For Africa Book Drives the last several years. Texas Blazers is proud to offer this opportunity for students at Johnston High School.  As Andrew Limmer said, “this is just a first step, and we hope others will follow our lead.”  The Blazers look forward to more successful BWB book drives in 2007 to continue raising money for this special endowment.

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

Sherry Lacenski, Textbooks Manager of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Phoenix Bookstore and long-time supporter of Better World Books and Books for Africa has a daughter, Pita, doing incredible work in Tassobon, Niger through the Peace Corps.  Sherry has been able to get involved by helping Pita to raise money here in the US for a project to build two new water wells in the village in which Pita is serving.  Through the generosity of 65 donors, she was able to bring over the $7,000 needed to fully fund the fresh water wells. For more information visit the Tassobon Well Project.

Sherry’s next project is a book donation to support an entire school in the Dosso school district. Sherry is currently coordinating with a volunteer nearby to her daughter Pita in Niger named Jessy Wilt along with Books for Africa.  More Information on Jessy’s project is available at: http://www.booksforniger.org/.

Sherry’s amazing commitment to literacy and supporting community development in Africa through continually running book drives during her store’s buyback at the end of each semester in support of Books for Africa and Better World Books is truly inspiring! 

Thanks, Sherry and keep doing all your great work!

Niko Tomlinson

Tassobon School

Kids in Niger Classroom

We've received several shout-outs from the blogosphere that I'd like to recognize.

The Worsted Witch, described as "the malformed love-child of my indecorous passions for knitting, sustainability, gothic horror, and illustration," made the case for used book buying better than I ever have, imploring her readers to support literacy at BetterWorld.com.

Booksiter listed BetterWorld.com as one of the top websites to find a good deal on your textbooks. They cited our Rapleaf Reputation (over 1,600 positive feedbacks as  I write!) which we are pretty proud of. We currently have the top ranking in the world on the Rapleaf Reputation system.

Tiffany on MySpace is teaching her friends how to "Improve the world and be a Cheapskate at the same time." She can't get over the free shipping. I don't blame her a bit.

Finally, author and historian Melissa March blogged about us a few days ago on Grosvenor Square .

Thanks to everyone for sharing the word!

This article about Elona Rrapo, a Phi Theta Kappa member, says it all! She has  demonstrated exceptional qualities of leadership with the” Book Drives for Better Lives” altruistic service project/ fundraiser on campus. Elona is the recipient of the Outstanding Leadership Award for January 2007.    Congratulations, Elona!

She's still paying it forward
By CHRIS MOORE
Published December 16, 2006
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/12/16/Northpinellas/She_s_still_paying_it.shtml

Hi all,

I wish you could have seen the amazing smiles from my coworkers and the volunteers to think that a company BWB's size came up with that much peanut butter.  ... THEN for me to tell them there may be more.
Saturday the most remarkable part of the season (for my job) started... from here on out, we're doing the distribution.  The essential heart of our program, where people come to us empty-handed and walk away with Christmas in their arms.  

Anyway, [BWB's Senior Manager] had mentioned that BWB may match what the employees had come up with.   To be honest, we did not have time to make an exact count, but I'd place it at around 340 jars.  If this is truly something BWB wants to do, thank you.

Thanks again for your participation in this,

Liz Fallon
Case Worker
The Salvation Army of St. Joseph County

Merry Christmas All!

In the spring of 2002 Better World Books got its start when the organization’s three founder ran a single book drive at their alma mater, Notre Dame University.  Their goal was to raise much needed funding for a local literacy center. 

After completing a very successful book drive, the three recent graduates decided to start and organization dedicated to running campus book drives in support of global literacy.  

Today, just four years later, Better World Books is working with students and bookstores on than 900 campuses throughout the United States and Canada.  A map showing the location of all of BWB’s partner campuses as of August, 2006 appears below. See if you can locate your campus…