BOOKS FOR A BETTER FUTURE

After spending days sorting and packing, weeks running book drives both on and off the campus and months of planning, junior history major Brendan McCormick appeared at the university's Mail Services facility May 7 with 2,000 children's books.

McCormick and the other members of Books Across Borders were finally going to ship out their collection of schoolbooks to a New York charity, the first stop on the collection's way to Africa.

So when the man behind the front desk told McCormick he couldn't ship the FedEx boxes most of the books were packed in, there was only one thing that seemed logical: Take them back to their storage room in Taliaferro Hall, where — armed with index cards and Sharpies — he and three others spent hours marking out the FedEx labels on each box.

Such dedication does not surprise Stacy Kosko, their former professor and associate director of the College Park Scholars Public Leadership Program.

Kosko teaches the program's first-year colloquium, which requires a community-based learning project designed to apply the leadership techniques learned in the course to a cause outside of the classroom. McCormick and some of his classmates developed the idea of collecting books to send to children in Africa as their project in spring of 2009.

"They had all these wild ideas and these amazing things they were going to accomplish," Kosko said. "And they did them all."

The students collected 3,000 books that first spring, mostly college textbooks from fellow students that were sold as a fundraiser benefiting schools rather than shipped directly to African students. This past spring, however, they donated books to the U.S.-Africa Children's Fellowship, which donates school supplies to children in such countries as Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Ghana.

"This is the kind of project that can really make a difference in places like Africa," said sophomore hearing and speech major Devon Brunson, a member of the group. "The funding is a big problem. They can get people to come and teach classes, but if there are no books, then their jobs become a lot harder."

Mark Grashow, president and co-founder of USACF, said these donations not only contribute to the overall quality of the schools in Africa but also encourage more students to attend school.

"Reading levels have risen dramatically," he says. "If they can send a single box of books, they can get 40 kids to go to school. It's a powerful thing."

Once their semester in Kosko's class was over, the group of students transformed itself into Books Across Borders, an officially recognized university organization, to continue providing support to African students, which Kosko said was rare and impressive.

"Many groups say that they will continue and most of them don't, which is understandable," she said. "Books Across Borders is one of the few that has. Their continuity is impressive."

And last year, the group netted 1,500 books from two local public schools and another 500 donations at the university. The books will be part of a consignment from USACF that's scheduled to leave for Africa this week.

Although the students were pleased with their efforts, they said they'd hoped to receive more from off-campus book drives.

But as sophomore marketing major Stephen Canterbury put it, "2,000 books can change 2,000 lives."

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