Like hunting and gathering, we go out in our materialistic lives and gather objects of purpose, tools, and symbols from our daily ritual of capitalistic enterprises of this American Dream.  We keep the engines of capitalism running with our last minute purchases and temptation shopping fueled by the advertising industry.  We gather these objects of fortitude into our homes and hope that our lives will now be changed as we have purchased the latest and greatest.  A small percentage of these objects become useful to us and integrated into our daily use.  The rest become hopes and dreams of a better life or a long lost vision of free enterprise when nomads wandered the ancient trails of a forest walk littered with specimins of foggy paridise.

We now put on our overalls, muster the strength to tackle all of these entities of Chinese manufactured polymers of plastic and steel.  We try to channel our inner Martha Stewart and feed the landfills of our greed and hasty decisions.

In our mind the idea that this object has meaning to someone somewhere in the world  holds us back from making the ultimate sacrifice.  We either go into self destruct or self denial.  We either say to hell with it and show unconditional love to the landfill Gods or we curl up in a ball and cover ourselves in a blanket of stuff.

There is a middle road.   There are some organizations that can take your hasty decisions and turn them into other people’s hasty decisions.  There are some organizations that take your dusty old stuff and turn them into dreams of hope and opportunity.  Your old children’s books gathering dust hold memories of a time when you and your child curled up in a bed and bonded over words, stories, characters, pictures, ideas, morals, concepts, laughter, and happy endings. The magical moment when your child first started to read.  When their small delicate finger following along and not your big chubby digits.  A time when their innocence was a lamp in your heart.

Now is the time to provide this opportunity to rural communities in Africa.  Communities of potential Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and scientist.  Communities of children were hope is something that is within the grasp and where you can make a real impact.

So go ahead fill out our form to donate books.  We will create new opportunities for these books and get them into the hands of children that will cherish them like it is their own soul.

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So you want to run a book drive and you don’t know where to get started.

1. Pick a Date  This will solidify your drive and become something very concrete in your mind.

You may want to dedicate an entire month for people to drop off books or only a week.  A lot of this depends on your availability.  The more available you are the more likely people will find the time to donate.  The one advantage to making a smaller date range is that it will provide more motivation.  The longer the time the more people tend to procrastinate.  If you do only have a few days for drop off there will be people that only find out about it later and will want to donate.  Another option is to have the main dates, but also have the option for a drop off for the stragglers.  You should however have a final date in your mind where you will no longer accept donations.

2.  Find an organization to work with.  There are a number of organizations that will work with you.  Each one of them has different criteria on what they accept. Find out all of the criteria ahead of time.  The more specifications the more complicated it can get.  If an organization only wants children’s books from k-4 you may be stuck with a bunch of books.  Make sure that the organization does intend to do good things with the books.  You can usually tell by doing a quick search on them.  Books4Cause has very open specifications we take most books in readable condition on any subject and any reading level.  We too have restrictions such as no magazines, journals, and encylopedias.  Some organizations such as ALP require that you raise money as well to pay for the cost of shipping.  Find out all of these restrictions and make your choice on who to work with.

3.  Logistics.  Where are you going to store the books?  How are you going to box the books?  What are the drop off times? What are the book restrictions? Who is going to sort the books?  Do you need volunteers? Are you setting up drop boxes?  Getting clear on all these details will ensure a smooth book drive.  Are you going to be offering book pickups for the elderly? A lot of times you can work with a Church or another organization.  They can help serve as a storage area and they also have a built in network of volunteers and potential donors.

4.  Marketing – Now that you have picked a date and found an organization that you want to work with it is time to get the word out.  There are many ways to do this, some are free, and some cost money.  Here are a few ideas.  Let all of your friends on FB now about it.  If you have a picture include it and send out a notification at least a couple of weeks in advance.  Do this a few times as the date gets closer.  Notify your local newspaper and have them run a story.  Call all of your friends, and parents friends and let them know what you are doing.  Ask each person on the phone if they have five people’s phone numbers.  Send out an email blast to all of your friends.  Create a flier and post it in book friendly areas like the library, schools, coffee shops, book stores, and churches.  The flier doesn’t need to be complex.  It should have the dates of the drive, the location, and the beneficiaries.

5.  Sorting and Shipping – This depends on the restrictions of the group you used.  If they only want k-4 then you will need to sort the books out into these categories.  This is the part where lots of volunteers can help.  When you have all of the sorting done notify the organization you used for the next step.

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When looking back at history we see the warring gene in our human race is what has evolved.  The ones offering peace to the incoming conquest were slaughtered.    When will we understand the universal axiom to accept one another and to celebrate and respect each others differences and diversity.

One can pervert good intentions of spreading the belief in one God.  When one has to result to violence, death, murder, and genocide it is probably the wrong way to go about doing it.

It’s all about the Kiddush Spread.  If there was lots of food people could use their time in other ways than to hunt and gather food.  Craftsmanship, technology, discovery, politics are born.

For me, Books4Cause is trying to equalize the playing field.  So many of our brothers ans sisters have been left behind and we need to do everything we can to pick them up.

Guns Germs and Steel is a pulitzer prize winning book.  It discuses the real reasons why certain nations/regions ended up being the conquerors and colonizers.

The post Reflections On Guns, Germs, and Steel appeared first on Books4Cause.

We will be in the beautiful city of  Cincinnati  Thursday March 29th and Friday March 30th.  We will be primarily at the University on those days, but if you live in the vicinity we will come and box your books and turn them into libraries.  These books will either be part of or support the creation of 18 libraries in Ghana.

Click here to donate your books.

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Our mission is to provide educational opportunities to those in need.  A lot of time we look outside our country and forget that there are many in need right here in our own backyard.  It sometimes feels better to be able to assist those in foreign countries as it seems more glamorous.  While assisting our brothers and sisters overseas we don’t want to forget those in our own backyard.

We feel honored and privileged to be able to be doing this work and accept the great responsibility of your trust to ensure that we make a positive impact.  Below is the text from Baden Academy:

MARCH 7, 2013

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