Dolly Parton's Imagination Library for Macon County
All children between the ages of birth to five years old residing in Macon County are eligible to register. Register your child today!
United Way of Decatur & Mid-Illinois (UWDMI) and The Community Foundation of Macon County (CFMC) have partnered to establish the Macon County Imagination Library, an affiliate of the international Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, which encourages literacy by mailing free books to preschool-age children. Families must register in order to receive the books for their children.
Through the program, registered children from their birth to age 5 receive a high-quality, age-appropriate book from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in the mail once per month at no cost to the child’s family.
“In 2 years, we have enrolled 2,777 children between the ages of birth to five years old into The Dolly Parton Imagination Library." "We continue to be committed to supporting early literacy in our community by getting books into the hands of children who may not have easy access to them,” said President Natalie Beck of The Community Foundation of Macon County. “Research shows that reading to kids has a huge impact on developing language and vocabulary. By age 5, the children of parents who never read to them have heard only about 4,600 words. In contrast, kids who are read to every day have heard almost 300,000 words by that age. We are excited to partner with United Way of Decatur & Mid-Illinois on this powerful literacy program.”
About Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
Since launching in 1995, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has become the preeminent early childhood book gifting program in the world. The flagship program of The Dollywood Foundation has gifted well over 150 million free books in Australia, Canada, The Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom and the United States. The Imagination Library mails more than 1.8 million high-quality, age-appropriate books each month to registered children from birth to age 5. Dolly envisioned creating a lifelong love of reading, inspiring them to dream. The impact of the program has been widely researched and results suggest positive increases in key early childhood literacy metrics. Penguin Random House is the exclusive publisher for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. For more information, please visit imaginationlibrary.com.