ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½

A 40-foot container of BFA books arrived this week in Tanzania for PEN Trust, a longtime partner of ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½. Nine pallets of books and school supplies and 40 computers from this shipment were delivered to St. Peter Claver High School in Ihumwa, just outside of Dodoma. Click on the link above to view more photos and to watch a video that captures the unloading at the warehouse in Miyuji, the truck’s liberation from the mud, its arrival at the classroom building, and the unloading of the boxes.

Megan Meyer, a student and aspiring dentist from Minnesota, founded the nonprofit A Hand in Health, and raised the funds to ship half a sea container of BFA books in 2010. About 7,500 books were used to establish the Sulaymn Junkung Medical Library, the first public medical library in all of The Gambia, and create a first-class community library. Click on the link above for more information and photos...

Thank you for your support of ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ in 2010! Thanks to your generous donations, we've been able to send over 1.6 million books to 19 ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½n countries this year. Click on the link above to view a special holiday message from BFA founder Tom Warth and BFA executive director Pat Plonski. Thank you to Capstone and ProFire Creative Design for producing this 2-minute video.

Children's book publisher Capstone, based in Mankato, Minnesota, donated over $5 million in new books to ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ in November of 2010. "This incredibly generous donation from Capstone is one of the largest publisher donations received by ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ that we can remember and will fill many, many school libraries across ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ with books," ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ director Pat Plonski said. Click on the link above for more info and photos...

On November 29, 2010, supporters of Thomson Reuters and the Jack Mason Law & Democracy Initiative of ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½ gathered to formalize and celebrate their partnership. Thomson Reuters has pledged to provide up to 15 core law libraries for BFA shipments each year for the next several years and will fund one shipment a year, a donation worth $1.2 million a year. Thomson Reuters hosted the reception, which featured a keynote address by former Vice President Walter Mondale, a co-chair of the Initiative. Click on the link above for more info...

Pat Plonski, Executive Director of ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½; Shaun Skelton, Executive Director of Visions In Action; and David Murphy, President of Better World Books, presented to the ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½n Studies Association on November 20, 2010. The title of their presentation was "Providing Books For Schools and Libraries in ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½: What Is the Impact on Literacy?" The presentation focused on best practices, return on investment, and impacts of donated books on literacy across the ÌÇÐÄvlgo´«Ã½n continent. Click on the link above for more info and to read the papers presented...