Posted by: Sarah Lynne Reul, Senior East Coast Regional Director

This past weekend, I was lucky to attend the East Coast Conference on Hunger & Homelessness at Boston University. It was a exciting experience – with nearly 300 enthusiastic students and activists attending, the energy levels were tangible! Every one of these students is participating on wonderful service projects to improve the lives of people in their communities, and hearing about the projects was inspirational!

Every Spring, the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness hosts this regional conference focused on hunger, homelessness, and poverty-related issues. After hosting a successful national conference this fall at the University of Southern California, the National Student Campaign organized this past weekend’s east coast event with workshops, panel discussions, innovative programming ideas, and fun networking opportunities. Here’s the website for the summit, with more info: http://www.studentsagainsthunger.org/ecsummit/ecsummit.asp?id2=28639.

The National Student Campaign Against Hunger & Homelessness is committed to ending hunger and homelessness in America by educating, engaging, and training students to directly meet individuals’ immediate needs while advocating for long-term systemic solutions. You can learn more  by visiting their website: http://www.studentsagainsthunger.org/

Many thanks to the organizers & students who made this conference such a great event – here are a couple pictures from the weekend!

Posted By: Damara Lauren Catlett, Northern Mid-Atlantic Regional Director

Project Educate, a non-profit organization working to improve educational standards and infrastructure in Zambia, runs several drives each semester in partnership with Better World Books. This is a wonderful opportunity for students not only to support Books for Africa but also to help Project Educate raise the much needed funds to support their work throughout Zambia.

The funds generated from last semester’s drives helped to finance the shipment of 400 computers to Mongu! This shipment enabled Project Educate to provide equipment to the Mongu Teacher Training College, the Lewanika General Hospital Nursing School and Project Educate’s newly founded Community Support and Resource Center. Prior to this shipment, the nursing school had a ratio of 1 computer for every 80 students. This figure has drastically improved to 1 computer for every 4 students!

This semester, Project Educate needs your help to finance their latest initiative to ship desperately needed medical and pharmaceutical supplies to Lewanika General Hospital in Zambia's Western province. The hospital is a 600 bed facility that serves an estimated population of 200,000 people.

To learn more about Project Educate’s mission and how you can help, please visit www.project-educate.org

                  

Here are some great photos from Worldfund's Mano Amiga partner school in Acapulco, Mexico. The pictures are from the Worldfund Executive Director's (Luanne Zurlo's) recent visit to the school. Education in action!

Jill from our customer service department sent this on and suggested we blog it. We never get sick of fan mail, so here's Josephine from Missouri's e-mail:

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Hi there

I have just got to tell you folks.....I have ordered many books in that last
4 years from Marketplace sources and Amazon since I began my theology
studies and you are BY FAR the most efficient and thorough and dependable. When you
are working on heavy duty research like they expect of us in graduate
theological education, you usually need your "source" like, oh, "yesterday" once
you figure out what the "all important source" is. And many of them are older
and hard to find. SO, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for being THE BEST service
I have found. I wish I had found you back in 2003 when I started my studies,
BUT I HAVE FOUND YOU NOW and I am incredibly grateful.

Do you have a website that I can access that will get me to you directly to
check and see if you have any text(s) I am particularly looking for in the
future to make sure I can deal with you?

Thanks again and PLEASE keep up the great work....we depend on you.

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We sure do have our own website, Josephine - check out BetterWorld.com for free shipping on every order.

I would like to take a moment to applaud the efforts of the Ohio Wesleyan Circle K and their phenomenal book drive to benefit Books for Africa.  Two semesters in a row now they have collected over 600 books, which is quite impressive for a school with a student population of only 2000.  They did a great job, and had an excellent article put in their school paper:

http://connect2.owu.edu/newsandviews/209.php

 

Thank you Ohio Wesleyan Circle K, and thank you to all Circle K and other student organizations that work hard to help our goal of promoting world literacy.  I hope we can collect even more books this spring!

-Aaron King

Great Lakes Regional Director

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.