Capstone Donates $5 Million in Books to Books for Africa

(Press Release) MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., Nov. 22, 2010—Capstone, the leading publisher of children's books and digital products and services, is donating 300,000 overstock books to Books for Africa, the largest shipper of donated text and library books to the African continent. The donation is valued at more than $5 million.

The long voyage will begin on Nov. 24 when the donated books will travel from the publishers' warehouse in Mankato, Minn., to the Books for Africa warehouse in St. Paul, Minn. From there the books will be sorted and packaged for shipment to Africa.

"This incredibly generous donation from Capstone is one of the largest publisher donations received by Books For Africa we can remember, and will fill many, many school libraries across Africa with books," said Pat Plonski, Executive Director of Books For Africa. "We truly appreciate the tremendous support of everyone at Capstone in helping to increase levels of education and literacy across Africa. Through education we can prevent many problems in the developing world."

This is Capstone's third major donation in less than two years to Books for Africa. In 2009, the publisher donated more than 37,000 books to the organization.

"This is by far the largest single book donation Capstone has made in our nearly 20-year history of publishing. We are excited to once again work with such an esteemed organization as Books for Africa to help raise literacy education and offer hope to children. We're proud to be a part of breaking the literacy and poverty cycle," said Lisa Hanson, Director of Human Resources.

Books donated to the program include titles from the publishers' divisions Capstone Press, Compass Point Books, Picture Window Books, and Stone Arch Books.

Since its start in 1988, Books For Africa has shipped more than 23 million books to 45 countries across Africa. In 2009, Books For Africa shipped approximately 1.6 million books to 20 African countries.