“To see people’s faces light up at the sight of a table full of books meant everything, and I’m always so grateful to the Y for empowering staff to share their ideas and create them into being,” says YMCA staff member Monica Tucker (photo).
Here is an image of Dolly’s first outing with Monica at the Enka-Candler Library.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library impacts the pre-literacy skills and school readiness of children under the age of 5 in Buncombe County. The program mails a new, free, age-appropriate book to registered children each month until they turn five years old. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library creates a home library of up to 60 books and instills a love of books and reading from an early age. The Imagination Library is now serving over 4,400 children in Buncombe County.
“The Imagination Library was designed to help children dream more, learn more, care more, and be more, and by golly, it’s really working,” said Dolly Parton. Parton started the program 20 years ago in her hometown of Sevierville, TN.
“Back in the hills of Tennessee, illiteracy was a real problem,” she said. “I saw firsthand the lifelong struggles that resulted for many of my friends and neighbors.”
“It really affected me, and ever since that time it’s been my dream for every child to have a library of books that their parents can read to them from, from the time they’re born until they start school.”
That dream has become a global reality. Today, the Imagination Library has replications in 1,600 communities in 4 countries. The program now mails over 1.1 million books each month to children in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
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