The Ambassador also highlighted that the African Union Commission is “pleased to partner with BFA in whatever way we can to advance literacy and education across the continent.” The two organizations have partnered in several ways including mobilizing key US stakeholders to deliver more books and securing BFA books for use at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. New initiatives are also being explored to expand education through such strategies as custom printing of books in local languages to deliver to children across the continent as well as through triangular cooperation programs.
“We welcome and appreciate this opportunity to partner together to help ensure that more children as well as adults have access to information and the latest and most up-to-date digital content,” she said. “Let’s reinforce our partnership and capitalize on the longstanding and deep historic and cultural relations between our Nations, leverage Africa’s unique advantages including its diversity and widespread Diaspora, as well as U.S thriving knowledge economy, to build together more sustainable partnerships for the best interest of our people.”
About 200 people attended the event, which also included remarks from BFA Founder Mr. Tom Warth, Board President Ms. Joni Sussman and Executive Director Mr. Patrick Plonski. The BFA Warehouse band provided entertainment.
“We were excited to celebrate the opening of our new Atlanta warehouse, which is our gateway to Africa and its millions of students,” said Mr. Patrick Plonski. “Our new warehouse will dramatically improve our efficiency and allow us to automate our operation. It will also be a more effective work area for our thousands of volunteers.”
Mr. Plonski added that “we were grateful to have the African Union Ambassador Hilda Suka-Mafudze as our keynote speaker. We welcome our continuing close relationship with the African Union, which helps us to better serve book recipients across Africa.”
BFA has had its major warehouse in Atlanta for many years. It also has its office and smaller warehouse in St. Paul, Minnesota. Millions of donated books from all over the country are sorted, packed and shipped each year from the Atlanta warehouse to the Port of Savanah, where they are sent by cargo ship to students throughout Africa. Approximately 10,000 volunteers work at the warehouse each year. Before the COVID- 19 pandemic, the warehouse had the second-most volunteers of any non-profit in the Atlanta metro area.
Both Ambassador Suka-Mafudze and Mr. Plonski thanked BFA event sponsors and partners including Thomson Reuters, Vector Global Logistics, MK Management Company, the UPS Foundation, and Zep. The Ambassador and Mr. Plonski also cited the critical importance of the African diaspora as well as African philanthropists living on the continent for their generosity in raising funds to pay shipping costs to send books to every African country.
