Over the last few months The Dolly Parton Imagination Library program in Moosonee has celebrated several major successes. In May, they received a grant for $4,600 from Porcupine United Way out of Timmins and a few weeks later came news of a second grant for $5,000 from Wakenagun Community Futures Development Corporation in Moose Factory. This much-needed funding will allow the program to continue in Moosonee and ensure that children under five in the community continue to receive a free book in the mail every month.
Lead by two dedicated local moms, Connie Hergott and Theresa Crown (who joined forces with the Imagination Library’s Canadian partner, Invest in Kids, in 2008), Moosonee has brought this exciting early literacy program to their community. Moosonee, in Northern Ontario, is only accessible by plane or train and there is no public library, so children who have not yet reached school-age have limited access to books.
The Dolly Parton Imagination Library supports children’s language and literacy skills and prepares them for school by gifting every signed-up newborn with a free age-appropriate book a month until the child’s fifth birthday. It helps parents build a positive parent-child relationship through rich sensory exchange as they start reading to their child from early on. Started in the U.S. by Dolly Parton in 1996 in her native Tennessee, the Imagination Library expanded across the States and is currently benefiting more than 490,000 families and their young children. The program has been available in Canada to families with children under five since November 2006 when it was launched by Invest in Kids in partnership with The Dollywood Foundation of Canada.
Each family in Moosonee has the opportunity to register their infants, toddlers and preschoolers for the program and receive a free book every month in the mail until their child’s fifth birthday. The program offers a way for parents to connect with their children, support their children’s language development and prepare them for kindergarten.
Moosonee is one of a growing number of Canadian communities taking part in the Imagination Library program. Each month children receive books that are carefully selected by a group of experts in education, child development and early childhood literacy, ensuring that the content they read and the illustrations in the books are supporting them appropriately at every stage of their development.
Since November 2006 families from communities coast-to-coast in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Manitoba and Newfoundland have had the opportunity to register their child. In March 2008, Nova Scotia became the first province in Canada to offer the program to all First Nations children born in the province and in January, the Yukon implemented the program across the entire territory, making all newborns eligible to join. In 2008, the program delivered over 5 million hard cover books to over 490,000 children throughout the United States and Canada.
To learn how to start an Imagination Library program in your community, please call The Imagination Library at 1-877-583-KIDS x 293 or visit www.investinkids.ca or www.imaginationlibrary.com.