Charleston County School District donates books to reading nonprofit in Africa

Boxes of books at the Charleston County School District's distribution warehouse get prepared for shipment to the Books for Africa warehouse.
Published: May 12, 2025 at 4:45 PM EDT|Updated: May 12, 2025 at 7:57 PM EDT
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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Communities in Africa are getting the chance to become readers through a donation program across Charleston County School District classrooms and libraries.

District officials say the growth over the years, with over 80 schools in the district, increases the number of books that are replaced each school year.

The school district partners with a Minnesota-based non-profit organization called Books For Africa to recycle used books in an effort to keep them out of the landfill.

The summer months signal the height of books pulled from the district’s shelves. School district leaders say the media center and curriculum textbook coordinators filter through possible books that are no longer state-adopted and donated each year. District leaders say about 36,000 pounds of books make their way to the district’s distribution warehouse in North Charleston each season.

Supply support leader Jonathan Robinson followed the program partnership from over a decade ago. Robinson says the distribution warehouse can see up to 400 boxes of books each day during the summer. Robinson says the number of books in each box ranges in amount and weight.

“Some of our textbooks are thick and heavy, so then you know you might just put 10 or 15 books in there,” Robinson says. “And then some of them might have 25 or 30 books in them. So our big pallet-sized boxes, they will probably hold anywhere between two and 350 books in each one.”

Robinson says the warehouse currently has 20 pallets of books ready to be shipped to the nonprofit. Up to four loads of books are shipped during the summer months to the nonprofit’s warehouse facility in Atlanta.

Volunteers at the Atlanta facility filter through each book based on content. Books that do not make the donation pile get shredded and recycled to leave a positive environmental footprint.

Over two million books were donated from the district to the nonprofit over the years. Nonprofit leaders say books from the Charleston area play a large role in their donation efforts, with about 30% of containers shipped to Africa stemming from the Lowcountry.

Books For Africa is focused on ending the book famine in African countries. Production Manager James Hall says the organization ships all over the continent and, more specifically, countries south of the Sahara Desert.

Books For Africa has donated over 62 million books to 55 countries on the continent since 1988. Over 1.6 million books were donated last year through the nonprofit organization.

Hall says reading is a privilege that is often overlooked in the United States. Hall says providing these books to African communities offers better workforce opportunities, especially for the children in rural areas.

“Areas that don’t see a lot of commerce, areas that don’t necessarily see a lot of activity,” Hall says.” Books, though, have a way, a very very subtle way of changing that.”

Robinson says he is proud of the school district’s impact on African students who benefit from the program.

“With the manager in Atlanta, he talked about going to Africa and watching these kids get these books, and he said it was like them getting a Christmas present,” Robinson says. “Some stuff that we take advantage of here, a simple book is like a lifetime to them.”

More information on Books For Africa can be found on their website.