Books are bound for Africa


GENEROUS GROUP—Books for Africa organizer Brittney Nial’s mom, Alissa, is surrounded by a mountain of boxed books in the garage of their Westlake Village home after just two days of collecting. The boxes are being stored in four local garages, and the now the student group is raising funds to ship the books. The public can chow down at some local restaurants to support the Agoura High students’ efforts. Courtesy photo

GENEROUS GROUP—Books for Africa organizer Brittney Nial’s mom, Alissa, is surrounded by a mountain of boxed books in the garage of their Westlake Village home after just two days of collecting. The boxes are being stored in four local garages, and the now the student group is raising funds to ship the books. The public can chow down at some local restaurants to support the Agoura High students’ efforts. Courtesy photo

When things are easily accessible, it’s easy to take them for granted.

Take electricity and clean water, for example. Most of us never stop to question how these crucial services are made available to us. But there they are.

Books are items many of us take for granted and cast aside as our connection to the internet intensifies. In places like Africa, however, books are a precious commodity.

Books for Africa—a nonprofit dedicated to collecting, sorting, shipping and distributing books to people who don’t have access to them—has sent more than 50 million donated text and library books to all 55 countries in Africa since the organization was founded in 1988.

Agoura High School senior Brittney Nial organized a recent collection drive for Books for Africa.

“We were shocked by the strength and passion with which this community came together,” Brittney said.

“We collected 9,000 textbooks, medical books, children’s literature, fiction and nonfiction books to be distributed to hundreds of small library building projects in Africa.”

The event took place two weekends last month at Evenstar Park in Westlake Village, Oakbrook Neighborhood Park and Chumash Park in Agoura Hills.

“We saw strangers pull up with trunkloads of books. We saw doctors review all their materials and come in with hundreds of books. We saw teenagers offer up their entire weekends to volunteer at book drop off locations,” the 18-year-old said.

The book drive is winding down and all materials are being stored in local garages while a new search begins for the money needed to ship them all.

“We currently need $3,000 left of roughly $5,000 to ship all these books to library building projects in schools and villages in Africa. There is nothing more that we want than to get every donated book where it belongs,” said the Westlake Village resident.

Each book costs 50 cents to send, so the students have decided to run fundraisers via restaurants this month with another group that has also adopted their cause.

“We have partnered with the school club Music Uniting Societies Everywhere as independent students can’t do restaurant fundraisers,” Brittney said.

Residents are invited to grab some meals and support the effort at the same time by going to the following Westlake Village restaurants, which will offer the listed fundraising times for the group:

Fri., April 16 from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. at Yogurtland, 111 S. Westlake Blvd., Ste. 105;

Sun., April 18 from 4 to 8 p.m. at Panera Bread, 5784 Lindero

Canyon Road; and

Sat., April 24 from 5 to 9 p.m. at Chipotle Mexican Grill 5754 Lindero Canyon Road.

It’s important for supporters to mention they are attending the restaurant for the Music Uniting Societies Everywhere fundraiser.

Additional restaurant fundraisers are planned for early May as well.

For more event information or to find out about the local Books for Africa effort, go to https:// donatebooks2021.weebly.com.

Ela Lindsay