Members of fellowship program help with Books for Africa shipment

St. Paul’s Books for Africa is preparing to send off another huge shipment of reading material halfway across the world.

Thursday’s sorting was another step in getting millions of books to Africa.

Among those sorting were 24 people from 15 African countries who are part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. They are attending a leadership institute at the University of Minnesota.

Organization leaders say more than 3 million books have been shipped in the past year.

“All books educate, so we try not to send books that I would not get here,” said Mike Essien, the president of Books for Africa.

From St. Paul, the books go to another location for more sorting before they are sent to Africa to change lives through the power of reading.