News

2023 has been a record setting year at Books For Africa! As we approach the end of our fiscal year on June 30th, we hope to surpass 4 million books shipped to Africa this year, which would represent an all-time high-water mark. We are thrilled to bring this momentum into our 35th anniversary year, which will culminate in our A Book For Every Child Gala in September! 

Books For Africa’s annual fundraising luncheon was held Friday, April 28th, 2023 at the Town and Country Club in St. Paul, Minnesota. This year’s event, Reading For All, was highlighted by a keynote speech from William Kamkwamba, author and subject of bestseller The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind!

If you ever visit the Books For Africa Atlanta warehouse, you will probably run into Perry Mitchell sorting books, joking with staff and chatting with fellow volunteers. For the past six years, Perry a former advertising creative director, who is 80, drives 40 minutes twice a week from his home near Emory University to the warehouse in Marietta.

Books For Africa participated in the 2023 World Literacy Summit in Oxford, United Kingdom in April. BFA was excited to sponsor this great event, and Founder Tom Warth and Executive Director Patrick Plonski attended and hosted a Books For Africa booth at the summit. Plonski also represented BFA at the 2027 World Expo Presentation for the United States in Paris, France on his travels.

A shipment to Zimbabwe in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense Humanitarian Assistance Transportation Program is currently completing distribution across Zimbabwe. Books For Africa’s books are going so far as to make their way to their destination by ox cart!

At the end of 2022, a delivery of 56 boxes of books arrived in Zimbabwe, heading straight for schools around Gonarezhou National Park (GNP). Through a long-term partnership with Zambezi Schoolbook Project and Books For Africa, AWCF has been able to establish 108 fully stocked libraries and are now at the stage of replenishing and supplementing the libraries with fresh stories and educational books for the pupils.