Hooch Students Work to End Africa's 'Book Famine'

On March 20 the Chattahoochee High School Books for Africa club capped off a three-month-long effort to collect books to “end the book famine” in Africa and delivered two vanloads of books to the Books for Africa warehouse in Smyrna.

Chattahoochee’s club started a book drive during the winter of first semester. The students wrapped boxes with holiday wrapping paper, and distributed them to all the language arts classes.

For the first time, the club expanded the drive to different locations in our community—donation boxes were placed at Taylor Road Middle School, Findley Oaks Elementary School and the Johns Creek Art Center.

After the students collected the books, they spent several days sorting through them, keeping the ones that met the guidelines for Books for Africa and then donating the remaining materials to Goodwill.

The big Smyrna trip was the last step to a long process, and the books were finally sent to the Smyrna warehouse, where Chattahoochee’s chapter of Books for Africa ended up donating several hundred books, ranging from picture books to lengthy college textbooks.

Books for Africa promotes a simple message that takes an initiative to stimulate literacy and education in Africa. It accepts donated books, sorts through them for the most loved and appropriate, and ships them to schools and libraries in Africa. Books for Africa has branched out over the years, and sends schools supplies and computers, as well. The organization is based in Minnesota but has a shipping warehouse in Atlanta.  The Chattahoochee Books for Africa club will be sponsoring another book drive next year.