Published: July 14, 2008 01:41 pm      

‘Imagination Library’

Dolly Parton’s program coming to Madison County

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library soon will be coming to Madison County to help provide free books monthly to children.

United Way’s Success By 6 initiative will join with community leaders Wednesday, July 23, to introduce the partnership with the Dollywood Foundation at the Madison County Public Library in Richmond.

Beginning at 10:30 a.m., adults will read to children in attendance during Imagination Library Story Time.

The Imagination Library allows for children from the day they are born to receive an age-appropriate book every month until their fifth birthday at no cost to the child or family.

On their fifth birthday, the child will receive “Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come” as their final book in the program.

Children, who can enter the program at any time, must reside in one of nine Central Kentucky counties: Madison, Anderson, Bourbon, Clark, Fayette, Jessamine, Montgomery, Scott or Woodford. The books are shipped directly to the children.

“In order for parents to read with a child, books must be in the home,” said David Kitchen, director of communications for United Way of the Bluegrass. “By partnering with the Dollywood Foundation, our goal is to eliminate one of the reasons why parents do not read to their child — the availability of quality books in the home.”

The program, which currently provides books to 3,250 eligible children in the regional community of United Way of the Bluegrass, began in Lexington in 2004 and has spread to include Anderson, Bourbon, Clark, Montgomery, Scott and Woodford counties.

Madison and Jessamine counties are the latest to join the initiative.

“I am so thrilled that United Way’s Success By 6 is bringing my Imagination Library to Central Kentucky,” said Parton in a statement. “I hope this will be an inspiration to children all across Kentucky to dream more, learn more, care more and be more.”

The award-winning country singer will be in Richmond on Saturday, Oct. 25, for an encore performance of St. Mark Catholic Church’s fundraising “An Evening Among Friends” series.

A 1999 Department of Education publication, “Start Early, Finish Strong: How To Help Every Child Become A Reader,” emphasized the importance of a child’s interaction with their environment rather than intelligence as a key factor in determining the ease at which a child will learn to read.

Literacy skills, such as letter names and shapes, associating sounds with letters, being read to, familiarity with books and associating reading with love and fun, are developed long before a child is able to read, Kitchen said.

“The key is to start at birth,” he said. “To immerse a child in a literacy environment can be a stronger predictor of literacy and academic achievement than family income. The more words a child hears, the larger the child’s vocabulary, and the larger a child’s vocabulary the more likely the child will be a proficient reader.”

Because the program is such a large financial undertaking, Kitchen said the United Way is seeking donations from individuals and companies who wish to help continue Imagination Library.

Donation forms for the program are available online at www.uwbg.org/successby6 or by calling United Way at 1-859-233-4460.

It costs approximately $150 for each child enrolled in the program.

Imagination Library forms will be available at the library and other centers around town beginning July 23 and also are available online at www.uwbg.org/successby6.

Parents or caregivers need to complete the form, mail it to United Way, 2480 Fortune Drive #250, Lexington, KY 40509.