8-24-2026 3:15pm

LFP Community Book Drive Fuels Grassroots Literacy Movement Across Africa

Chris Clasen Editor

Cathy Harber (left), and African Library Project founder, Chris Bradshaw.

Founder of the African Library Project, Chris Bradshaw fell in love with the African continent as a college student completing a year abroad in the 1960's. A pretty daunting endeavor for a single woman to be trekking around Africa at that time, and something she wouldn't necessarily recommend today (in case you were thinking of following in her footsteps).

During one of her many re-visits, Chris was inspired on a pony-trekking trip in Lesotho, 22 years ago, where she learned that the entire country had only one library.

Today, the African Library Project (ALP) has established more than 4,300 libraries across 13 English-speaking African nations. Despite its vast reach, the organization maintains a remarkably lean structure: 95% of its workforce is volunteer, and the nonprofit operates without a central physical headquarters.

Because communal public spaces are rare in many of the regions served, roughly 95% of ALP’s libraries are built directly inside local schools, giving children reliable, everyday access to reading materials.

A Community-Driven Model

The organization’s library model relies on a partnership between local leadership in Africa and volunteer groups across North America:

Local Ownership: African communities must formally apply for a project and demonstrate long-term commitment by providing physical space, furniture, shelving, teacher-librarians, and an oversight committee.
North American Book Drives: Volunteer groups in the U.S. and Canada take on individual library projects. Each drive collects 1,000 gently used children's books and raises $650 to cover the cost of overseas container shipping.
Streamlined Logistics: Collected books are shipped to a centralized warehouse in New Orleans, Louisiana, where they are consolidated into sea containers holding 30 to 65+ complete libraries before heading overseas.
Curated Content: Books are sorted into clear, accessible categories—such as fiction, non-fiction, and basic reference material—rather than complex classification systems. Damaged items, adult titles, and religious materials are strictly excluded.

Local Drive Targets Two Ugandan Schools

Currently, a book drive anchored in Lake Forest Park is raising materials and funds to establish two new school libraries in Uganda.

The first target is St. Patrick’s, a rural primary school (grades K–4) near Lake Victoria. Serving approximately 500 students, the school's existing reading resources were previously limited to a single two-shelf bookcase.

The second beneficiary is a school located in the Arua Town refugee region near the borders of South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Serving roughly 2,300 students in grades K–6, the school faces high dropout rates fueled in part by a severe lack of basic learning materials.

Through these targeted drives, local organizers aim to replace sparse shelves with thousands of books, opening new educational pathways for young readers overseas.

Chris and Cathy are working on setting up a book donation option here in Lake Forest Park, and we'll post updates on the progress.

DONATION LINK