Bringing Literacy to Your Mailbox

You have not really made until you get something back to the place that gave you your start. Dolly Patron knows this, so it has a major project to bring skills to the children of her native Smoky Mountains. And now she's spreading all over the world!

In 1996, Dolly's Imagination Library in an effort to ensure that all children have books, regardless of family income. She mails a new, age-appropriate books each month for each child under five years in Sevier County, Tennessee. From their first book that the small engine could be their last, look Kindergarten Here I come, children in East Tennessee, the value of reading to learn.

The comprehensive program with other community prayed for their children are included. Penguin Group USA, the exclusive publisher of Imagination Library books and in 2000 she began to give books to children in Branson, Missouri and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, both places where it operates. All she asks is that other local community leaders to take the same initiative!

And they did:

If a society would Imagination Library program to all their children, pay for books and e-mail its promoting the program, registering children and to enter data in the database, the Dolly wood Foundation Management system to deliver the books at home. There are 1068 communities involved, and slightly less than 561,000 children enrolled.

In 2009 they distributed 6.2 million books. This brings the total number of books distributed by Dolly's Imagination Library to just over 23 million! It is certainly a difference in the lives of many children.

Imagination Library is the difference abroad! The program is moved to the United Kingdom, where they distributed 100,000 the book in 2009. It is also in Canada, where the number of children rose 100 percent per month in 2009. The library has made statewide, universal programs in Tennessee and Yukon Territories, and work towards similar programs in Alaska, Georgia and West Virginia to create.

Most recently, Dolly published his own children's book, I'm a rainbow. She also announced that all royalties earned from them would be donated to the Dolly wood Foundation, which runs the imagination library program.

Bow Lady, a documentary film was recently made about Dolly and her commitment to reading and writing skills spread in Canada, recognizing her work as a tireless advocate for children.

Join in and register your community! Just type in the population of Dolly's Imagination Library website, and you can at an estimated cost of what you need to start your own library. If you or a sponsor to raise funds for this purchase, you will contribute to your community whose benefits are seen for generations to come.

Dolly has given so much to the children of her hometown, we should all be inspired to do the same!

Read more about charitable initiatives Dolly's and other fun things in the Smokies Gatlinburg cabins on our website.