Twin Cities Book Walk 2023 Raises Funds for African Literacy
View our photo album from this event here!
Tom Warth, who founded Books For Africa 35 years ago, led 25 supporters on an 11-mile Twin Cities Book Walk on June 24 from the Minneapolis Central Library to the George Latimer Central Library in downtown St. Paul. The walkers wound their way along the mighty and beautiful Mississippi River, down historic Summit Avenue in St. Paul and past the Governor’s mansion. They raised $2,500 to ship 5,000 books and a law library sponsored by Thomson Reuters to Uganda.
Warth started BFA after visiting a new library in Uganda whose shelves were bare. He set out to end the book famine in Africa. More than three decades later, Books For Africa remains the largest shipper of donated text and library books to the African continent, shipping over 58 million books to all 55 countries on the African continent since 1988.
Over the years, Warth, now 87, has walked more than 2,000 miles to support BFA. He climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro for his 70th birthday. He celebrated his 80th birthday by walking across Zanzibar Island in Africa and has walked across The Gambia in Africa. He has walked across Minnesota and Wisconsin and from the Canadian Border to Iowa.
“We have made progress towards ending the book famine, but we still have a lot of work to do,” Warth says. “There are more than 500 million children in Africa (which has the youngest population in the world). That is a lot of kids who need books and an education.”
More information on the walk: https://www.givemn.org/event/Leo1ef
Check out our slideshow below:
