What is Better World Books? Better World Books (BWB) is a global bookstore that partners with more than 900 libraries and over 1600 campuses worldwide, collecting unwanted textbooks and library discards in support of non-profit literacy programs that reach the global population. What CKI can do? Raise money for CKI and their literacy partners by hosting book drives on your campus. Plus, your can save 10% with our CKI promo code when you buy your textbooks from them! Code: CircleK217 (expires September 2011)

Let’s take a closer look! Click on the link below which will take you to the BWB website and view the video that says it all!

How to Start the BWB Movement on YOUR Campus! Step 1: Contact a BWB representative today! Step 2: Plan and organize! Recruit members to help and get campus permission! Step 3: Promote! Contact your friends, professors, and other organizations!

Step 4: Collect and Pack! Collect in strategic locations such as the student union building, the library, and dorms! Pack A-list books! (find out more on this at betterworldbooks.com) Step 5: Ship free and Easy! Better World Books pays for shipping and sends you the boxes to pack the books in! Step 6: Use the money you’ve raised! Either donate it to one of BWB literacy partners, ELIMINATE, or use it for that service project your club has been dying to fund!

BWB Literacy Partners! Books For Africa is a simple name for an organization with a simple mission. BFA collects, sorts, ships and distributes books to children in Africa. The goal: to end the book famine in Africa. Since 1988, Books For Africa has shipped more than 20 million books. These books are now on once empty library shelves, in the classrooms of rural schools, and in the hands of children who have never held a book before. Invisible Children improves the quality of life for war-affected children by providing access to quality education, enhanced learning environments and innovative economic opportunities for the community. Through education and innovative economic opportunities, they partner with affected communities and strive to improve the quality of life for individuals living in conflict and post conflict regions.

The National Center for Family Literacy’s mission is to create a literate nation by leveraging the power of the family. Through groundbreaking initiatives, the NCFL fuels life improvement for the nation’s most disadvantaged children and parents. More than one million families throughout the country have made positive educational and economic gains as a result of the NCFL’s work, which includes training more than 150,000 teachers and thousands of other volunteers. Room to Read has developed a holistic, multi-pronged approach to help children in the developing world gain the lifelong gift of education. This approach includes building schools, establishing bilingual libraries, publishing local language books, establishing computer labs, and funding long-term girls’ scholarships. Since its inception in 2000, Room to Read has impacted the lives of over 1.7 million children. Worldfund’s unique mission is to support high-quality and results-driven education in Latin America—the key to transforming lives and reducing poverty. Through their investment in schools, gifted student programs and superior teacher training, they have directly impacted 32,000 impoverished students in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela.

BWB/UNICEF/Help Haiti is a unique partnership between both of our service partners in which funds raised by CKI Book Drives go directly to helping Haiti. Funds provide for a variety of services be it water, food, education, medicine and much, much more! This is your chance to help with Haiti by just doing a book drive! With The Eliminate Project, Kiwanis International and UNICEF have joined forces to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus. Neonatal tetanus kills one baby every nine minutes— nearly 60,000 newborn children every year. A significant number of women also die due to maternal tetanus. The effects of the disease are excruciating—tiny newborns suffer repeated, painful convulsions and extreme sensitivity to light and touch.The Eliminate ProjectKiwanis InternationalUNICEF

Ways to Incorporate BWB into your Meeting!!  Have a packing party! Pack up collected books to send to BWB! Don’t forget they pay for shipping!  Place Bins! After contacting/being approved place bins in residence halls, the bookstore, student union buildings and any other frequented places on campus for a meeting activity!  Educate your members on the literacy partners! They are Books for Africa, Invisible Children, National Center for Children’s Literacy, Room to Read, Worldfund, UNICEF/Help Haiti, and newly added ELIMINATE!

 Have your members “like” the Facebook page! One way to earn points towards your book drive is to get 75 ”likes” on your Facebook event page! Hold a Tabling Event! This not only earns you points but also gets your book drive out there! For more ideas and info on hosting a book drive, visit and visit the BWB resource tab for the Book Drive Guides and other great ideas! Feel free to contact BWB Ambassador Catie Dugan,