News

Four canisters loaded with 30,000 copies of 10 different Barefoot Books titles in Portuguese, with a retail value of $6 million, are scheduled to arrive in Mozambique later this summer after being custom-printed in Hong Kong and shipped from its port. The books will be distributed to AIDS orphans and their caregivers. This shipment of 300,000 books is part of a new Books for Africa initiative in which the organization will begin publishing some books in local languages for charitable donation through a partnership with a publisher. Typically, BFA sends used book donations to countries in Africa in English, and occasionally French, Spanish, and Arabic.

The MoneyGram Foundation provided a $50,000 grant to Books For Africa to sponsor a shipment of 66,000 books, computers and maps to schools in Ghana, Cameroon, and Ethiopia, and a team of employees in the MoneyGram International Minneapolis office volunteered to sort donated books at Books For Africa’s St. Paul, Minnesota warehouse.

Books For Africa Founder Tom Warth, Board President Jote Taddese, and Executive Director Patrick Plonski were honored to attend the African Union Summit, held at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! The Summit was part of a larger trip by BFA leadership, which also included stops in Dubai, Egypt, and Tanzania.

Last summer we were pleased to host a group from the MN Orchestra at our Minnesota warehouse, where they helped unveil two beautiful Little Free Libraries to be included in a BFA container shipment to South Africa. These books have now been delivered and distributed, and are contributing to educational opportunity for students in Soweto, South Africa. T

A Books For Africa shipment of 22,000 books, which left our Warehouse in August, was recently received in Zambia! Container captain Martyn Howie led a successful fundraising effort from his home in Lumwana, Zambia, building support from around the globe for the Lumwana Book Project.

When a Pretoria-based soldier made a social media appeal for books for his nephews three years ago, he opened a chapter in his life that would see him deliver more than 21,000 books all over the country.