Larry Horton
Six years ago a group of Rotarians from all four Rotary Clubs in Linn County meet with Greg Row, the head of the United Way of Linn County at that time.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss an early literacy program called the “Imagination Library,” created by country music superstar Dolly Parton.
Parton was very aware of the value of learning to read at an early age. Her vision was to get quality, age appropriate literature into the hands of children at an early age.
To do this, she created the “Dolly Parton Imagination Library.” This program mails a book a month to all registered children between the ages birth to 5 years old. The program also encourages parents to read with their children and to participate in learning activities at the end of each book.
The cost of the program is approximately $35 per year per child; however, the program is free to participating families.
Linn County Rotary Clubs help cover part of the costs with donations from other community businesses like Umpqua Bank, The Sweet Home Community Foundation, Weyerhaeuser, Linn County Libraries, United Way of Linn County and Coastal Farms.
Greg Roe asked the four Rotary Clubs of Linn County if they were interested in helping support the Imagination Library for a year to see how it worked in Linn County. Greg had heard about the program from Central Linn School District staff. The staff told him that they credited much of their children’s success in reading to the Imagination Library. At that time, Central Linn had the highest early reading scores in Linn County.
The four Rotary clubs, Albany, Greater Albany, Lebanon and Sweet Home all agreed to donate to the program. A total of $78,000 was raised and over 2,000 children received their monthly books for a year.
Needless to say, the program was and is a huge success. All four clubs decided to continue the program but they wanted hard data that showed the program was really working. In year two the program was discussed with the Albany and Sweet Home School Districts.
Both school districts offered to provide data from the kindergarten entrance exams comparing early literacy results of the students that participated in the Imagination Library program with those that did not participate.
The results showed that Imagination Library participants out-scored the non-participants by over 30% in the literacy section of the test. These same results have continued over the entire duration of the program.
Over the past six years the program has grown to well over 3,000 children and the cost has now gone over $100,000 yearly. Over the six years of the program over 150,000 books have been distributed to the youth of Linn County.
Almost all of the original donors have continued to support the program and many others have now stepped up to help.
The program is still administered by the United Way of Linn County. According to Blake Pang, the current head of United Way of Linn County, the program has been so successful that it has now expanded into Benton and Lincoln Counties.
If you care to know more about the program or wish to donate to this valuable program please feel free to contact Blake Pang at http://www.Unitedwayoflinncounty. Children birth to 5 may also register for the program at the same website.