The Dolly Parton Imagination Library program is celebrating 30 years this year, and the Mount Vernon and Lisbon programs are looking to celebrate that accomplishment.
More than 3.1 million children have been enrolled, and more than 270 million books been distributed. Locally, enrollment is now 320 children served and more than 4175 books delivered to children in the Mount Vernon and Lisbon communities in the four years running the program.
Carol Daly and Marti Hurst said that the local programs have a busy summer planned. They began at Chalk the Walk, and will have booths up at Heritage Days festival in July, then Party in the Park at Lisbon and back to school events for both elementary schools.
The duo know that their efforts reach people at those festivals, as they have people from other communities like Marion, Cedar Rapids, Jones County, Cedar County who have come up to the booth whom they refer to their local chapters for the program. As for many Mount Vernon and Lisbon residents, the answers they get is that many who see them there are already enrolled in the program.
“Our real goal is to get to the very young kids,” Daly said. “We love signing up kids who are 3 and 4 years old, but we’d love to help kids grow a library from day one and have almost 60 books by the end of their program in their library.”
To that end, the group went to Cole Library’s story time in May to connect with some newer parents.
“The funny thing is we went to that event and brought the cardboard cutout, and very young kids already know who Dolly Parton is,” Hurst said.
One of the things that the program is known for is providing a variety of books each year. There are the traditional first books like “The Little Engine That Could” and the final book most kids receive wishing them well into kindergarten, but the other books given each year change and vary and are selected by experts.
The Dolly Parton Imagination Library has been established in Lisbon four years ago when a citizen helped provide an anonymous donation of seed money, and the Friends has been raising money ever since.
“We were worried initially about how much time we were going to be raising money for the program, but we have been blessed with how the communities of Mount Vernon and Lisbon have embraced these programs,” Daly said.
“As Mayor Tom Wieseler said after we made a request at Mount Vernon City Council, supporting literacy efforts is not controversial,” Hurst said.
While Mount Vernon’s zip code was added to the efforts of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library last year managed by the Friends of the Lisbon Public Library, the program has always seen their efforts in these communities as one and the same and with the same goal – get books into as many young kids hands as possible and encourage reading at an early age.
“We look at this as one community,” Hurst said.
And the impact of the program as a whole has touched the lives of so many children around the world, all started as a way to help children read and in honor of Parton’s own father.
There are efforts at the moment to get the Dolly Parton Imagination Library supported at the statewide level, to help get funding for efforts that would benefit the community.
“You can’t get enough books in the hands of young children,” Daly said.
If you know children in either community who is under the age of 5, you can sign them up for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program at either Lisbon Public Library or Cole Library. The program also collects donations to help support literacy in the communities.