A local organization is collecting books and money to help stock library shelves in Africa.
Community members have collected about 800 books through a partnership between two organizations. The book department at the Alachua Habitat for Humanity ReStore, known as the Habitat Bookworms, along with the African Library Project, are gathering and packing books to send to Ghana libraries.
Harold Baranoff, book department manager, said the organization has raised $100 of the $500 needed to send out the shipment.
Shipping the books to the project’s warehouse in New Orleans costs about $200 and an additional $300 to ship the books to the individual libraries in Africa the project is working with, Baranoff said.
“We have almost enough books set aside, and we’ve started raising the money,” Baranoff said. “As soon as we have $500, we’ll be shipping them out.”
Linda L. Cronin Jones, a UF associate professor of science and environmental education, said the educational tools that are often viewed as absolute basics are resources that many kids in Africa don’t have access to.
“If you do have access to books that are donated, even for children who can’t afford to go to school, they have a way of getting access to the world,” she said.
Jones, who has previously worked in Ghana, said education is a major difficulty for many kids in Africa’s developing countries.
Daniel Solernou, a 25-year-old UF political science and sociology senior and Habitat for Humanity intern, said the shipping cost is one of the biggest issues faced by the Bookworms.
“I think the goal really is to make as much money as they can for the postage and get as many books as they can over to the project,” Solernou said.
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 2/17/2014 under the headline "Bookworms inch toward $500 goal for Ghana libraries"]
