ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½

ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ — a St. Paul nonprofit founded in 1988 that is the largest shipper of donated library and textbooks to the ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½n continent — this month will mark its 50 millionth book sent.

ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ (BFA) will be shipping its 50 millionth book to ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ by the end of 2020. Quite an achievement for a Saint-Paul based organization that started in 1989 with a simple mission: End the book famine in ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½. In 1988, Tom Warth visited a library in Uganda and saw that books were almost non-existent, and the few that occupied the shelves were tattered and worn. Returning to Saint Paul, he started BFA in an effort to provide education through books to ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½n students of all ages.

Longtime BFA donor, supporter, and former board member Henry Bromelkamp was featured in a recent story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, about his philanthropic work and recovery from a recent traumatic brain injury.

In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ continues to assist medical personnel with needed medical resource books and students with instructional materials. With the help of a recently approved $150,000 grant from the Merck Foundation, BFA is providing thousands of medical resource books in print and medical e-books to doctors, nurses and medical students across the ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½n continent.

Reference books on viruses and other contagious diseases were donated to health practitioners in the Sissala East Municipality, as part of an initiative with ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½.

Concordia Language Villages' WorldView blog ran a post highlighting two of BFA's initiatives - BFA Publishing and the Girls Empowerment Collection - for their effort in using language and culture to build a love of reading.