Firstly let me start by saying just how much I have always adored Dolly Parton, from the top of her perfectly coiffed wig to the tip of her undoubtedly scarlet painted toenails this woman has been someone I’ve admired for a long time.
It has been well documented that Dolly had a tough childhood, brought up in abject poverty and someone who has never forgotten her roots. Throughout her career she has always looked after those less fortunate than she and this altruistic attitude is demonstrated perfectly with her project The Imagination Library.
Set up in 1995 Dolly’s Imagination Library aimed to promote pre school literacy in the children of her hoe county, East Tennessee. Each month every pre school child would have a pre-selected high quality, age appropriate book would be mailed out to their home address at no charge to them, bringing the joy of reading to every home no matter what their financial status.
This proved to be hugely popular and in 2000 Dolly decided to extend this program to any community who would work alongside her in supporting the project in their locality. It then extended into Canada and Australia and now it has sailed across the pond to the UK with London being the most recent city to benefit from Dolly’s generosity.
Since beginning her Imagination Library, Dolly has sent out over 60,000,000 books with 1600 communities being involved and over 750,000 children benefiting from these boosts to early literacy.
What are you waiting for? See if your local community is involved, if not get them involved. Just click here to read more on this amazing gift that Dolly has given to children everywhere and see if you can help the children in your locality to get a head start in reading.
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