A book can change a life

We are Books Matter. We've been sending books to Ghana school children for almost six years now, but this is our last shipment (and our biggest). There aren't many books in Ghana -- some schools don't have any -- even though books can be life-changing. I say we share some; we just have to get them there.

Up until now we have sent roughly 17,600 books to over 25 schools and one library in Ghana. We ship them by sea -- the cheapest method -- and it takes about six weeks for them to arrive in Ghana's capital. We are really fortunate that several Toronto-area schools organized book drives for us (I am a retired teacher). We had no idea that the schools involved would do such an amazing job and collect more books than we ever imagined. Now we have 7,000 books to send! 

We're raising this money so we can ship the books. We have $1,100 already, which would have been enough to send a modest number of books. Here's exactly what we need the money for:

- we need ten more shipping barrels to put the books into (we already have ten). We can get ten more barrels for $160
- we will have to pay someone (with a big truck) $150 to transport the 20 barrels from our Toronto home to the shipper in Etobicoke (30 min west of Toronto)
- we have to pay $150 to ship each barrel of books to Ghana and we will have 20; that's $3,000
- we need 20 small locks to lock each barrel (approximately $20)
- there's a 3% fee when the money is transferred to our financial institution (approximately $70) and a 5% GoFundMe fee (around $125)

That adds up to $3,525 but we already have $1,100, which means $2,425.

It's probably worth mentioning that we have shipped books to Ghana several times in the past and have never had a problem. The various schools that the books are going to provide their own transportation, pick the books up from the capital (Accra), and transport them, at their expense, sometimes to remote areas of the country. We have also never had a problem with anything going missing during the entire shipping process. That's good, because things don't always run smoothly in Ghana (and many other countries, for that matter).

We know these books will make a huge difference for many students for years to come. If you would like more information, you can visit our  website (which will be up until early April).

Thanks for your support!

Keith Goddard