Friday 9/25 is Give Like Dolly Day

Dolly Parton may be gone from this earth, but she will never be forgotten. Her movies and music will live on forever. Even better, her creation of the Imagination Library will continue to fuel dreams for children here in the Chattahoochee Valley and any kid who needs a book.

One of Dolly’s biggest contributions towards making a difference was her love for inspiring children. Her father couldn’t read or write, and Dolly’s formal education ended with a high school diploma.

It was the Imagination Library she founded that changed lives for kids across the country and around the world. The book program mails free, age-appropriate books to children from birth to age five every month. To date, more than 320 million books have been mailed.

The Dollywood Foundation, home of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, announced Give Like Dolly Day on September 25, a global day dedicated to supporting local Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Programs and honoring Dolly’s extraordinary legacy of inspiring children to dream big and develop a lifelong love of reading. As Dolly often said, “If you can read, you can do anything, dream anything and be anything.”

Bridging the Educational Equity Gap

The Chattahoochee Valley Imagination Library, a fund under the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley, is dedicated to addressing the educational equity gap in Muscogee County. Its mission focuses on providing age-appropriate books for children from birth to five years, ensuring they are ready for kindergarten.

Established in 1995, the Imagination Library confronts the pressing issue of low-income children starting kindergarten unprepared, which leads to enduring consequences for their education. One of CVIL’s primary objectives is to engage young children early on, fostering positive literacy habits. CVL has collaborated with the local Georgia Department of Health to enroll as many children as possible from the WIC program, focusing on the county’s most vulnerable population.

Collaborations for Literacy Enhancement

CVIL has also partnered with the United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley to deliver free monthly books to pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first-grade classes in the lowest-performing schools enrolled in the Community Schools United Program within the Muscogee County School District. These children are currently struggling to meet their grade-level literacy goals. Each month, books are sent to participating schools, where volunteers from the Rotary Club of Columbus read the featured book to the children and lead two book-related activities.

Following these readings, teachers conduct lessons based on the books, re-read them with the students, and send the books home for each child to keep. The activities are designed by the program’s administrative specialist, provided by the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries, which also covers the costs of activity supplies and some administrative expenses.

Targeting the Most Vulnerable Families

In Muscogee County alone, approximately 15,000 children are under five years old, with 5,000 living below the poverty line. The initiative specifically targets these 5,000 children, aiming to supply them with age-appropriate reading materials and resources for parental support. The cost to provide a year’s supply of books is $31 per child. Currently, CVIL supports nearly 5,600 children across the three counties served including, Muscogee and Cusseta-Chattahoochee Counties in Georgia, and Russell County in Alabama, at an annual expense of approximately $173,000.00.  It is only through the generous donations of local community donors that the early childhood literary gap can be bridged in our community.

This is how you can help: https://donate.imaginationlibrary.com/?country=US&affid=GAMUSCOGEE