Legendary music star Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80. The Queen of Country built an impressive career as a singer, songwriter, country music icon, actor, and businesswoman.
She was also a philanthropist who dedicated much of her life to helping others.
Parton leaves behind a lasting legacy through her efforts, which include creating a global literacy program, funding regular scholarships, donating to medical research, and contributing to disaster relief and community relief programs.
In 1988, for instance, Parton created the Dollywood Foundation to decrease the dropout rate in her childhood home county, Sevier County, Tennessee.
She also created the Buddy Program, promising to give every seventh-grade student $500 if they graduated from high school. Each student was paired with a buddy and asked to pledge to do everything they could to ensure that they both graduated.
Her efforts reduced the dropout rate for both classes from 35% to 6%.
Literacy loves company
In 1995, Parton launched Dolly’s Imagination Library in Sevier County, Tennessee. The monthly book-gifting program provided books to children under 5. It started as a local initiative and grew to an international movement that is still going strong.
Last year, Imagination Library celebrated its 30th anniversary, with the global literacy program donating over 3.4 million books each month. In the United States, 1 in 6 children under the age of 5 receive Imagination Library books.
Since the program was founded, over 300 million books have been donated to children worldwide.
Here’s how Dolly’s Imagination Library works
Every month, Dolly’s Imagination Library mails books to all children enrolled in the program. There’s no cost to families. Imagination Library delivers books by mail each month to children from birth to age five.
Imagination Library provides the infrastructure, including managing the central database, coordinating book selections, and wholesale purchasing. It also covers admin costs, coordinates monthly mailings, and negotiates wholesale book pricing.
The Imagination Library teams up with local program partners to make the initiative successful. Local program partners, which include businesses, school districts, organizations, and individuals, help bring the program to communities around the world.
Local partners promote their programs within their communities, online, and at local events.
How to get involved
If you want to help carry on Parton’s legacy and inspire more children to dream more, learn more, care more, and be more, you can get involved.
An online tool tells you if Imagination Library is available in your community. If there is, you can donate to your local partner to bring books to more children in the area.
If the Imagination Library isn’t available in your community, you can consider becoming a local program partner. You must apply to become an official local program partner, secure a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, and fundraise the wholesale costs of books and mailing. Enroll your child
Children are eligible to enroll in the program from birth to age 5.
