By Destiney Dingess, The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of West Virginia has seen major enrollment growth over the years, while its financials and donations are at a standstill.
The Imagination Library initiative is a program that mails books straight to a participating child’s home each month, from birth to age 5, at no cost to the families. The program strives to promote early literacy and school readiness to children, no matter their family’s income or ZIP code.
West Virginia is one of 19 states that boasts statewide availability of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which requires funding to sustain its 53,000 actively enrolled children.
“The young ages that the program targets promotes reading time with caregivers (and) providing nurturing interactions, which is so integral to a healthy and secure emotional foundation, coupled with the wonder of learning, sparking imagination, and building a vocabulary with dual language exposure,” said Jamie Lima, state director of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of West Virginia.
Marshall University’s June Harless Center became the local program partner for West Virginia in 2018 supporting the Imagination Library program in select ZIP codes from 41 counties, based on demographic need. Cabell County had only two available ZIP codes. Before the involvement of the June Harless Center, the program was housed within the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, which no longer exists.
Since the June Harless Center took over the state sponsorship and the program’s statewide expansion in 2022, the Imagination Library’s enrollment — and cost — has more than doubled due to the full expansion of all ZIP codes in all counties becoming eligible for program enrollment, providing access to every child from birth to age 5, Lima said in a written statement.
