Better World Books

http://www.betterworldbooks.com/

Did you ever wonder what happened to all the books that the library discards?  Before Xavier Helgesen and Christopher 'Kreece' Fuchs came up with the brilliant idea of Better World Books, they were often boxed up and languished in backrooms and basements or even (horrors) put out on the curb with the trash.  According to their website, Xavier and Kreece were in search of ‘life plan’ after graduating from the University of Notre Dame when they began selling textbooks online.  They discovered that there were plenty of unloved and unwanted books across the country that needed to be re-purposed.  They began collecting books (from everywhere) and either selling them online or giving them to organizations that desperately needed books.  Pprofits they made from selling books went into funding literacy programs like Books for Africa, Invisible Children and Worldfund.    Libraries also receive a percentage of the book sales for the books they donated.
Their plan was enormously successful.  To date they have raised over $9 million for libraries and literacy programs and collected 48 million unwanted books.  That’s 48 million books doing good, right now, across the planet.  They currently work with 2,000 libraries across the country (as well as colleges and universities) to collect books that need new homes.  Because they also care about the planet (I know, they seems too good to be true) they balance their carbon emissions by buying Renewable Energy Certificates from 3Degrees (a carbon balancing service provider).  And, of course, there are the 8,000 tons of books they have kept out of the landfill.
Just when I thought they should put their feet up and take vacation, they started a new program.  LEAP stands for Literacy and Education in Action and  is a grant giving program that funds specific literacy ventures around the world. Each grant project is listed on their site with exact details of how they are improving the world.  Better World has awarded $125,000 to organizations working to improve literacy.  Groups like Feed the Children, Room to Read and The Robinson Community Learning Center have posted their ambitious projects for readers to follow.
So the next time you buy a book don’t even think about going anywhere else.  Better World Books is one stop do-gooder shopping: raising money for literacy, creating jobs, saving books from clogging the landfill and providing books for readers around the world.  Truly inspiring work.