I never stop being astonished at what Thomas Stader and the Library Project accomplish. TLP is a testament to the power of good social marketing. More importantly the group delivers more than it promises.

Here is a letter from Thomas about their recent work:

I am so proud of what The Library Project has accomplished over the past three months. We have far exceeded The Library Project’s goals and expectations. There is so much to share - from an incredible and growing list of elementary schools which have benefited from new libraries to how you can get involved in helping to improve the lives of China’s rural children.

Before we start sharing our library’s successes, I would like to discuss how The Library Project is providing assistance to the people affected by the recent earthquake in China. On May 12, 2008 China experienced a 7.9 earthquake in Sichuan Province, located in central China, 70,000 people died, and over five million people were left homeless. Thousands of elementary schools were damaged in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi Provinces. The Library Project will continue to do all we can by providing books and libraries to elementary schools and orphanages by way of our new 2008 Earthquake Program. The Library Project will be providing our first libraries to six “tent schools” located 25 km from the epicenter. To learn more about this program, please click here.

Over the past three months The Library Project created twenty-five school libraries and donated more than thirty thousand books. Each of the twenty-five schools received a wide range of high quality children’s books including: history, science, short stories, fairy tales, reference books and comics. We also provided a full set of children’s encyclopedias for older students and pinyin language books for the kids just learning to read. The Library Project also provided colorful child-safe tables and chairs, posters and a world globe to all the classroom and/or library rooms.

These fabulous new libraries are located throughout China in the countryside of Shaanxi, Anhui, and Gansu Provinces. At each library site, The Library Project held book drives, which collected over thirty thousand quality second-hand books from local donors. We also purchased over ten thousand first-hand books from Xin Hua Books Stores at just $1 a book.

In addition to books and supplies, the school librarians received library management training. Since most rural elementary schools have never had a single book in their libraries our Librarian Training Program gets them up to speed starting day one.

The Library Project is very happy to announce that Scott Perkins and Nicholas Ingleton have joined our Board of Directors. Scott Perkins is President and CEO of Connectify Networks based in San Francisco, California. Nicholas Ingleton has lived in Asia for 50 years and currently is a director of Aston Holdings (Overseas) Limited in Hong Kong and Aston Associates Limited in Beijing. I am honored to have them a part of our growing team.

In addition to providing libraries to twenty-five elementary schools in rural China, we have had over twenty small awareness and fundraising events since March. Our volunteers hosted most of these events around Asia and the world. For example, Celia held an all women’s wine tasting in Beijing that raised enough funds for one library. Siok Siok Tan has been doing charity screenings of her new documentary on the 2008 Beijing Olympics, “Booming Beijing” and raised enough funds for five libraries. Sophia and Eric organized an event at Kommune (great Ozzie BBQ) and a lecture on ”rural education in China” at the Glamour Bar, both in Shanghai. We raised enough funds at these two events for libraries in two different rural elementary schools. I would also like to thank everyone that came out to our San Francisco, Phoenix and New Jersey events. We raised enough for seven libraries during that USA fundraising run! Finally, a huge thank you goes out to Napoleon and Marcel in Hong Kong for organizing our lecture at Web Wednesdays and the XL Results Foundation. We raised enough for three libraries at these events. Thank you everyone for your hard work and dedication!

WE NEED YOUR HELP

There are three ways to get involved:

Help by spreading the word. You can help out in so many ways. Forward this newsletter to your friends, family members and coworkers, make a post on your MySpace page, blog to help raise awareness for The Library Project, or join our Facebook Group by clicking here. You can also help by hosting a small event at your home, work or local restaurant. . If you need help organizing a fundraiser, please contact me anytime at tom at library-project.org. Thank you!

Help by volunteering. You can make a huge difference in the lives of countless children in the developing world by becoming a volunteer. There are so many different ways to volunteer: you can throw a wine tasting or dinner to introduce The Library Project to others, hang a poster above the water cooler at your office, or introduce us to your company’s HR Department.

Help by making a donation. Without money, we can’t buy books. At a dollar a book, most of us can afford to buy 10, 20 or even 100 books. Make a donation and help bring the gift of education to countless children. Our libraries generally contain about 500 - 1000 books, thus every donated book (or dollar) helps!

Lastly, please check out some of our new products. We created 50 book, 100 book, 250 book and 500 book gift cards available at $1 a book. Each card also has a beautiful picture of a library we have donated. The gift cards are a perfect gift idea.

The Library Project is a non-profit organization. Your donation is 100% tax deductible. Thank you in advance for your kind support of our efforts.

Sincerely,
Tom Stader
The Library Project
Founder

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