By David Boyce
The African Library Project, the Portola Valley nonprofit that collects books to populate the shelves of new school libraries in Africa, used to ship its precious cargo one library at a time in U.S. Postal Service mailbags. No more.
With the Postal Service’s decision last spring to discontinue the mailbag option, the Library Project is taking a page from the playbook of other international shippers and sending the books in a standard maritime cargo container. That’s 25 libraries at a time, says Library Project founder and Portola Valley resident Chris Bradshaw.
The first container is set to leave New Orleans for Botswana in December, including books collected with the assistance of Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park.
A 25-library container to Lesotho is planned for February, Ms. Bradshaw says. “It’s been a big transition for us,” she tells the Almanac. By June, she says she hopes to have raised the total number of African Library Project libraries to 110 in Botswana and 60 in Lesotho.
The book contributions come from 20 U.S. states, she said. For the library in Botswana’s Kebonyekgotla Primary School, Kepler’s provided a book drop near the cash register in which customers could place new or used children’s books chosen from the Library Project’s list.
When buying a book for the program at Kepler’s, if a customer mentioned the African Library Project, Kepler’s also contributed a percentage of the sale toward shipping costs.
Also helping with the Kebonyekgotla library were Xilinx Inc. and Technology Credit Union, both based in San Jose; PayCycle, based in Palo Alto and Schaumberg, Illinois; and the prominent New York City law firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw.
Now in its third year, the nonprofit Library Project is sponsored by the One World Children’s Fund, based in Greenbrae. Tax-exempt 5013C status is a couple of months away, Ms. Bradshaw says.
Asked if the Library Project was now her full-time occupation, Ms. Bradshaw replies cheerfully, and with a hint of exhaustion: “It’s my full-time volunteer occupation, very full time.”
Anyone wanting to volunteer time — particularly with “interior infrastructure” matters such as board membership, public relations, fundraising and volunteer coordination — can contact Ms. Bradshaw at info@africanlibraryproject.org.
For more information, including categories of acceptable books, go to africanlibraryproject.org.
