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February’s Charity of the Month: International Book Project

MDRT member Dennis Pike (second from left) volunteers on-site in Ghana in community development programs.

In a country where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is killing thousands and has created more than 200,000 orphans, the Ghana HOPE (Healthy Outcomes through Preparedness Education) Program is sharing life-saving knowledge to thousands of Ghanaians through the gift of reading.

Ghana HOPE is a branch program of the International Book Project, which received a $5,000 grant from the MDRT Foundation in 2005. This grant was used to fund the costs of a 20-foot container that will bring approximately 15,000 general health, nutrition and biological science books to communities in the Assasan region of central Ghana.

Dennis Pike Jr., CLU, ChFC, a 33-year MDRT member from Lexington, Kentucky, sponsored this grant.

“This project is important because we will be sending hundreds of thousands of pamphlets and books to Ghana in an effort to educate elementary school children on the dangers of AIDS,” Pike said.

Students gather in front of the school/library to receive books.

The International Book Project (IBP), based in Lexington, Kentucky, was founded by Harriet Drury Van Meter in the basement of her home in 1966. Drury Van Meter was inspired by a trip to India in which she witnessed people lining up to receive not food, but a free book. It was this experience that compelled her to create an organization that would help the crisis of illiteracy in the developing world.

In 2004, the MDRT Foundation supported this important cause by awarding $11,000 to IBP. Since its inception IBP has distributed more than 1 million free books to underprivileged communities in almost 80 countries throughout the world.