In order to ensure the Guide to Service-Learning Colleges & Universities reaches all strata of the college-bound community, we have developed the Free Book Distribution Program in partnership with those colleges and universities profiled in the Guide.

Our goal with the program is to distribute approximately 50,000 books free of charge to low-income secondary schools, libraries and community-based organizations identified by our college partners. Organizations such as Learn and Serve America, various Campus Compacts and state departments of education have also helped us in our effort to identify organizations that may not otherwise have immediate access to the Guide. This includes those communities that most service-learning programs at our list of selected colleges and universities serve.

This ambitious program is expensive. We estimate that the Free Book Distribution Program will cost us upwards of $500,000. Working with the advice of our National Advisory Board, we felt one way to defray some of this large out-of-pocket cost would be to ask the colleges and universities chosen for inclusion in the Guide to make a contribution toward the Free Book Distribution Program in return for creating and publishing their one-page profile, detailing their service learning program, in the Guide.

With the advice of our National Advisory Board, we have developed recommended contribution guidelines based on criteria such as school size, financial strength and peer institution contributions. *We are pleased to report that approximately 70% of the schools selected for inclusion in this First Edition of the Guide have opted to make the contribution to the Free Book Distribution Program.

* No school that has qualified for inclusion in the Guide to Service Learning Colleges & Universities interested in the profile option in the Guide will be excluded provided they have genuine financial constraints and show good faith toward the Free Book Distribution Program.