Dolly Parton and Rotary International
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Each month, Rotary International, with the help of the 46,000 clubs around the world, designate monthly observances to highlight specific areas of service, global causes, and organizational priorities. September is right around the corner. Students are returning to school. So, it makes sense that Rotary’s theme for September is Basic Education and Literacy.
Rotary’s goal is to strengthen the capacity of communities to support basic education and literacy, reduce gender disparity in education, and increase adult literacy. Rotary International, through its Foundation supports education for all children and literacy for children and adults.
Since 2009, Rotary International and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library have partnered to provide books to preschool-aged children in communities of all sizes across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Since its inception in 1995, the Dolly Parton Imagination Library gifted more than 300,000,000 books around the world.
The program in a nutshell is that any child registered will receive their own book for free to read and keep each month until their 5th birthday. If a child is registered when they are first born, they will have their own library of 60 books by the time they are five years old. A great start for lifelong learning.
“Inspiring kids to love to read became my mission,” said Parton. “In the beginning, my hope was simply to inspire the children in my home county but here we are today with a worldwide program that gives a book a month to well over 3 million children.” Parton’s efforts have gone far beyond her original dream.
Rotary clubs around the world mobilize, leveraging their time, money, and expertise to open schools, teach adults and children to read, make schools healthy, provide books and enhance educational systems. They also raise funds locally and utilize the financial resources of The Rotary Foundation.
Here in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Rotary District, clubs have donated thousands of books to schoolchildren to take home, mentored students struggling to read, and helped re-open public school libraries.
Rotary believes that Enhancing Basic Education skills and Literacy are essential in reducing poverty, improving health, encouraging community and economic development, and promoting peace.
Local Rotary clubs work with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to fund, to promote, and manage book-gifting programs that mail free books to preschool-aged children. How local clubs get involved:
Fundraising: Rotary clubs partner with local charities to cover the wholesale and mailing costs of books for children in their communities.
Registration: Rotarians enroll local families and build awareness so more children from birth to age five receive free books.
Global reach: Clubs in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other regions support this shared literacy effort.
Thank you Dolly for reminding everyone that literacy opens doors and for your generosity and optimism that will live on.
You can learn more about how you can be a part of this program by visiting the Imagination Library website. To hear more about Dolly Parton and Rotary, and her program for literacy, you can view these videos: The Imagination Library and The Imagination Library with Rotary International and read about her in The Rotarian (now Rotary) magazine in 2010.