In the days since Dolly Parton’s passing, people across Tennessee and around the world have reflected on the music she gave us, the joy she created and the extraordinary generosity that defined her life.
For those of us who work in early literacy, another part of her legacy feels especially close to home.
Every month, children across Tennessee walk to their mailboxes and find a book addressed just to them. They open it with a parent, grandparent or caregiver. They turn the pages, discover new words and imagine places they have never been.
One simple idea. Extraordinary impact.
Dolly launched the Imagination Library in Sevier County in 1995, inspired by her father’s inability to read and write. She believed
giving children books of their own could inspire them to dream more, learn more, care more and be more.
Tennessee believed in that idea, too.
A Tennessee success story with national impact
Governor’s Early Literacy Foundation was founded in 2004 by former Gov. Phil Bredesen and expanded Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to all 95 Tennessee counties, making Tennessee the first state in the nation to offer the program statewide. The public-private partnership built here helped pave the way for similar models across the country.
Since 2004, more than 60 million Imagination Library books have been delivered to Tennessee children. Today, approximately 270,000 children receive a book each month.
Those numbers are extraordinary, but Dolly’s impact cannot be measured in books alone. It lives in the moments those books create: a parent and child reading together before bed, a new word learned, a question asked, a child discovering that their world can be bigger than what they see in front of them.
The Strength of Tennessee Is Partnership
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has reached generations of Tennessee children because no single organization does it alone.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provides the program infrastructure. With financial support from the State of Tennessee, GELF funds 50% of book and mailing costs statewide. Local program partners in all 95 counties raise the remaining 50%, enroll children and build support in their communities.
It takes all of us.
Building on Dolly's legacy for the next generation
That same spirit of partnership must guide the future of early literacy in Tennessee.
At GELF, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library remains a cornerstone of our work, but our reach has grown to serve children from birth through third grade. We are building home libraries and fostering literacy-rich communities, meeting children where they are: at home, in the classroom and throughout their communities.
Because literacy does not happen in one place. It happens when families, educators, schools and communities surround children with opportunities to read, learn and grow.
We Can Keep Leading
There is no replacing Dolly. But each of us can help carry forward her extraordinary legacy of inspiring a love of reading.
Donate to help provide books to children across Tennessee and sustain the Imagination Library statewide.
Enroll an eligible child in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
And perhaps most importantly, open a book with a child, read together anddiscover more ways to support literacy across Tennessee.
Dolly showed us what is possible when you put a book in a child’s hands and believe in what is possible for them. Tennessee took that belief and built something extraordinary around it. More than 60 million books later, we have the opportunity to build on that foundation.
Tennessee has long led the way in putting books into the hands of children. Together, we can build on that legacy, ensuring every child has books within reach and opportunities to discover just how big their world can become.
James Pond is president and CEO of the Governor's Early Literacy Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to strengthen early literacy in Tennessee by building home libraries and fostering literacy-rich communities.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Dolly Parton's literacy legacy is Tennessee's to carry forward
