Posted By: Niko Tomlinson, Senior Midwest Director

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

The South Bend Tribune stopped by last month as we were inaugurating the "Better World Books Fund" at Books for Africa with a $75,000 check.

Here's the link to the article.

Posted By: Abby Rae LaCombe, Rocky Mountain Regional Director

This past weekend we sent a variety of Better World Books employees to the Idealist 2007 conference in Chicago.  How great to see so many motivated students finding new and innovative ways to help their communities. 

An excellent highlight to the conference was our very own Xavier Helgesen’s presentation on Green Business Practices.  The conversation covered an excellent and wide array of topics including many of the efforts the BWB is making to be a greener company everyday.  We had a great time discussing the concept of being a carbon neutral company and how carbon credits and investment in alternative energy practices are rapidly becoming integrated in daily business practices across the country.  It was also an excellent opportunity for blossoming entrepreneurs to get some great feedback on the difficulties and finer points of starting a socially conscious business.  WorldFund’s Michelle Viegas was also attended, which enabled some excellent discussions on the differences between the non-profit and for-profit business worlds. 

It was wonderful to meet representatives from all over the country and I am grateful for such a warm welcoming from the whole Idealist crew, DePaul University, and everyone who attended the conference.

Posted by: Yanna C. Ogilvie, Midwest Regional Director

This past weekend Chicago was host to the Idealist Campus Conference. This conference is a gathering of students and practical dreamers that want to make the world a better place. Better World Books just had to be there to meet all these motivated and compassionate people. It was a good thing we had so many Better World Books employees on hand for the Opportunity Fair because everyone wanted to learn more about us. On the final evening of the conference BWB co-founder, Xavier, held an intriguing workshop on Green Entrepreneurship for the young green dreamers of the conference. We had a great time meeting interesting people and bonding with each other. Thank you, DePaul and Idealist.org for hosting such an inspiring, well organized and fun conference!

Sincerely,
Yanna C. Ogilvie

Posted by Sarah Lynne Reul, Senior East Coast Regional Director

Sadik Antwi-Boampong, a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology & president of the student group EASE (Expediting Access to Standard Education, http://web.mit.edu/ease/www/participate.html has spent the last few months organizing a library in in Nsuta, a small town in Ghana. While in Nsuta during January, he was able to meet up with Pat Plonski, the Executive Director of Books for Africa, and arrange a shipment of 7,000 books for the library!  In his words, “It was a refreshing experience for me to meet and share my experiences with [the students of Nsuta]. Additionally, I was especially humbled that I received tremendous support from various people who shared my passion for educational empowerment through reading. It is my fervent prayer that the presence of the library will produce academically excellent students in Nsuta community.”

Sadik & EASE will be leading a Better World Books/Books for Africa book drive this spring at MIT. Here are some great pictures from his trip to Nsuta

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

Recently I had the pleasure of attending the Ecumenical Advocacy Days Conference in Washington, D.C which focused on education and advocating for global peace and justice through lobbying and service. It was so exciting to be among a group of concerned citizens who were working toward fixing a number of social ills specifically relating to children. The issues discussed included fixing No Child Left Behind, improving the public education system in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the recruitment of child soldiers in various conflicts, the school pipeline to prison phenomena and the impact of the ongoing Columbian conflict on children.

Additionally, this was a full circle moment for me as I attended the conference last year during which I heard Stephen Lewis the U.N convoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa say that “an African girls is 50 times less likely to contract HIV/AIDS if she is literate.” This one statement sparked my interest in literacy as a way to combat poverty and disease and led me to my work with Better World Books!

The conference reinforced for me that running a Better World Books drive is a tangible way for us to as Gandhi said “be the change we want to see in the world”.

 

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

Hi, I’m Jack, the new Northeast Regional Director here at BWB.  If you want some info about me, check out our “About our regional directors” page on the site.  Done yet…?  OK, now that you know everything about me, I can begin:

It’s hard to start anew.  I just moved to Boston and started a new job and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.  I like the area I moved in to and I like the mission of Better World Books, but how will I adapt?  Will the people in each area live up to the fantastic experiences I’ve had in the past?  Today I can say: Yes, and then some.

I’ve only been with BWB for a month, but from meeting the amazing people at the warehouse, talking to Pat at Books for Africa on a conference call, to even joining an “office” March Madness pool (which I am getting beaten soundly in, by the way), I feel at home already.  The first people I met working here were so diverse in background and outlook, but there is one goal that we share: global literacy.  This experience has truly made me feel like this is a job that I can, and will, succeed at because of their support system and enthusiasm.  I can name at least 10 people who have saved me already, and I’m sure that list will extend, and hopefully, with our new hires I can start building a reputation as an answer guy too.

The best thing about starting though was the crop of emails from book drives encouraging me and showing such excitement about our program.  Gary Chang, a Phi Theta Kappa member in New York City sent me the attached photo of how many books he has in his room at the beginning of the semester.  You all know how much a picture is worth so I keep this one above my desk, with my eye on the prize.

Posted by Natasha Harris, Senior West Coast Regional Director

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!

Posted by: Xavier Helgesen, Co-Founder

We ran a customer survey yesterday for BetterWorld.com, and have been amazed by some of the responses.

"I live in South Africa and my text books for this year would have cost me the equivalent of a months salary. At better world I literally paid a fifth of that for all my books and the quality was excellent."

"As soon as I found out about BWB I began telling my friends to order from you in the future. If our money can not only purchase books but encourage reading programs, why wouldn't we support that?"

" The Better World Books philosophy matches several of my personal ethics very closely. I hate waste, I support recycling, I love books/reading/literacy and I support pragmatic, intelligent aid systems, especially those where the purchaser gains something of value as well as feeling they've helped others. Keep it up, folks. Peter Bryenton www.brypix.com"

"I would recommend Better World Books, because your prices are good, you send orders out quickly; I love to read and feel strongly that everyone should have the opportunity to discover reading, so I love knowing that by buying from you I am helping that happen."

Posted By: Andy Warzon, CTO

Tom Warth, the founder of Books for Africa, along with Pat Plonski, Executive Director, visited the Better World Books warehouse recently with our CEO David Murphy to discuss the mission of BFA, see the operation, and answer questions from employees about BFA, and announce further growth in the BWB-BFA partnership.

Here is a short clip of Tom Warth, discussing Books for Africa's mission and the partnership with BWB.

Posted By: Xavier Helgesen, Co-Founder

One of the things that makes me the proudest of Better World Books and Books For Africa is the way we can step in and directly make an impact in Africa. Instead of just passively reading about the problems of the world, we can make a real and tangible change.

In that regard, few book shipments have warmed my heart more than this one. Late in 2006, a shipment of 15,000 books direct from the Better World Books warehouse arrived at the Ahfad University for Women, a private, non-sectarian University with 5,000 students. Sudan and its people have been victims of a corrupt and genocidal ruling regime. I've always believed that regime change is more likely to succeed by educating minds than toting guns. I wonder if the next generation of leaders in Sudan may include women educated at this University.

Below are some pictures from the book distribution. These are exceptionally high quality and recent textbooks, which students in the USA and Canada originally paid about $1 Million for. All it took was a lot of gumption on the part of everyone involved with Better World to get them to Sudan.