Thanks to a recent grant from the Women to Women Giving Circle through the Illinois Prairie Community Foundation in the amount of $7,000, along with generous support from many organizations and individuals throughout Logan County throughout the past two years, we are pleased to announce that the program is now available throughout the county, including children in Lincoln, Illinois and surrounding towns and villages.
The Dolly Parton Imagination Library is a program that mails free books each month to registered children from birth to age five in participating communities within the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Republic of Ireland. As of November 2022 over 195,000,000 books had been distributed through this program and over 2,200,000 children were registered for the program.
Inspired by her father’s inability to read and write, Dolly started her Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county, and it has grown since then. The purpose of this program is to provide books in the home to encourage a love of books, reading and learning and positively affect school readiness. According to the National Commission on Reading, “The single most significant factor influencing a child’s early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school.” When books are in the home, children and parents are more likely to pick them up and read together.
Early in 2020, The United Way of Logan County and the Hartsburg-Emden School District partnered to bring The Imagination Library to Hartsburg-Emden children. Since that time, community businesses and individuals from all over Logan County have supported the program, allowing its growth to now include all Logan County preschoolers. Find our list of generous supporters at https://www.uwlogancountyil.org/dolly-parton-imagination-library-supporters. This support has allowed growth from 29 children receiving books in the summer of 2020, to over 200 at this time, with 71 children having graduated (reached the age of 5) to date. Over 3,100 books have been distributed throughout Logan County since the program’s inception.
Parents that would like to register their preschoolers (birth up to age 5) that live in any of the communities listed above may register them online at https://tinyurl.com/yaja3k4u or contact the United Way of Logan County at 217-735-4499 or uwloganil@comcast.net.
This is an ongoing program and will required additional support to keep it going. Anyone that would like to sponsor a Logan County child for a year at $25, or multiple children, please donate at https://www.uwlogancountyil.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=21 . Checks may also be mailed to United Way of Logan County P.O. Box 684 Lincoln IL 62656. All donations to this program will be designated to this program and will not affect the United Way of Logan County’s other grant programs to local non-profit agencies.