Buffalo Creek Middle School Collects 3,000 Books for Struggling Arfrican Schools

BRADENTON – Students and staff at Buffalo Creek Middle School set a goal earlier this year of collecting 1,000 pre-kindergarten to fourth-grade books to donate to a primary school library in Africa. Thanks to an outpouring of generosity and enthusiasm, more than 3,000 books were ultimately collected – enough to help stock two additional African school libraries.  

Jessica Forstat's 7th grade Language Arts class helped collect books

Originally initiated by Buffalo Creek Middle Media Specialist Donna Matzke and Media Center Volunteer and school parent Janine Gregor, this special book collection was undertaken in cooperation with the African Library Project (ALP) and the Swaziland National Library Service (SNLS). Swaziland is a small country located on the northeast corner of Southern Africa.

The first 1,000 books collected have already been delivered to the Mbsesamandla Primary School in Swaziland. The additional books are being shipped this month to the Dziwe Full Primary School and the Samama Primary School, both located in the Republic of Malawi.

Buffalo Creek Middle School Business Partners volunteered their time and resources to help the project. Bay Area Industrial Services donated boxes and UTC Fire and Security employees helped pack the books and paid the shipping costs. Sandie Kifer of UTC Fire and Security and her team of Lynn Madsen, Mark Leatt, Tim Potter and Tim Morphy for helped to sort, pack, tape, label and box more than 3,000 books.

Williams Elementary School also contributed numerous books to the effort, and teachers at Buffalo Creek Middle promoted the program within their own classrooms. A contest among reading teachers was initiated to see which class could collect the most books. The contest was won by Lisa Adams’ seventh-period class, and students in the class received a pizza buffet.

The SNLS initiated a partnership with the ALP in 2008 to develop primary and secondary school libraries throughout Swaziland. Schools in the United States, like Buffalo Creek Middle, collect gently-used books which are shipped via the ALP to primary schools in Africa. The SNLS provides the teacher-library training and coordinates the book distribution. Buffalo Creek’s book collection effort is a wonderful demonstration of the Manatee District’s EdVantage Strategic Objective of Students actively engaging in global outreach.

According to statistics less than 40 percent of the population of Swaziland makes it to secondary school and with 50 percent of Africans living on less than $1 per day, it is impossible for the Swaziland government to provide all of the necessary books and school aid.
”Students, staff and the Buffalo Creek Middle School community out did themselves for the African Library Project,“ said Media Center Specialist Donna Matzke.