For some University students, graduation is quickly approaching. For others, the warmth of summer is right around the corner.

But for everyone, the hassle and irritation of selling textbooks back for little to no money is inevitable.

Better World Books has partnered with Books for Africa to give students across the country another option: donate your used textbooks for underprivileged children in Africa.

Southeast regional director for Better World Books Mary Murphy has visited Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya, all locations where literacy is an issue.

“They thirst for a chance, and they know that education and literacy truly bring hope for a better way of life,” Murphy said. “Where there is illiteracy, there is poverty.”

Bins for the establishment soon will be located across the University campus, around dorms and other major locations.

“I just think it’s a great organization because it really doesn’t require much out of students, and the benefit that it brings to the kids in Africa is unimaginable,” said Alan Bernstein, a junior marketing major from Marietta, and one of the event’s student organizers.

“Just drop in the books that aren’t worth anything, and it brings so much.”

Bernstein is the informal leader of the group of 10 students who coordinate the effort to get the green and white bins to the University campus.

“In the next week or so, we’re trying to organize to get a gigantic box to put in the middle of Tate and then put little African kids’ pictures and their stories of how Better World Books has affected their lives personally, so hopefully people can connect the box with what the organization actually does,” Bernstein said.

Armed with statistics and quotes, Murphy also gives presentations to further people’s knowledge on the subject and to explain the goal of the company. Quoting the U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, and his book, “Race Against Time,” Murphy offered this statistic:

“A woman is 50 times less likely to contract HIV if she’s literate, so in that domino effect that we have in trying to help AIDS and get pharmaceutical companies to help and get the drugs to them, it’s not happening as fast as it should be.”

Better World Books helps in two different ways.

First, the books are gathered from college campuses and sent to Books for Africa, where they are “sorted and packed by volunteers who carefully choose books that are age and subject appropriate,” according to www.booksforafrica.org.

Since 1988, BFA has sent more than 18 million books to recipients in 37 African countries.

If BFA decides a book is not needed for the cause, it asks Better World Books to sell the work online, receiving the unrestricted funding for the organization.

With the reselling aspect, bookstores are not yearning to cooperate due to competition.

“On some campuses, bookstores will help us, but it’s been a little hard at UGA, I don’t want to lie,” Murphy said. “The only reason the bookstores won’t help us is because we resell [some] books online.”

Bernstein said they are trying to work with some of the smaller, less corporate stores to allow a bin to be available for students to throw in their texts.

“Don’t take this dollar. This dollar means so much more to kids in Africa, and all you have to do is put your book in this box,” Bernstein said. “A lot of them give change back for [books]. Who wants that change? It’s just frustrating.”

Murphy said she hopes students stop and think about the cause.

“If people just know what these boxes are around campus, I think that they would be more willing to say, ‘I am so blessed to have the education I have,’” she said. “Most students share their books in Africa. If you’re studying for a class, and you have to share that book, it’s pretty tough.”

She has been involved with Better World Books since its inception, and said she enjoys the work.

“I love what I do because I know it’s helping with people and the environment – making great strides,” she said. “Our whole philosophy is, reuse the book first, find a home for that orphan book, and at the very last resort, we recycle, but we don’t throw away books.”

For more information, visit www.betterworld.com.