This morning my wife was reading news blurbs on her phone and she said, “Here’s something surprising that you will appreciate, but maybe find hard to believe.” She went on, “Dolly Parton reads 52 books a year!” It did surprise me, but it wasn’t hard to believe. She is a remarkable lady in many ways. My wife continued reading; the article said that Dolly has given over 100 million books to pre-kindergarten children! Now that was hard to believe. So I Googled, “Dolly Parton Imagination Library.”
When Dolly was a girl her father could not read nor write. The only book in their home was a Bible. Her mother read the Bible to her and told her Bible stories. She said her imagination was stimulated and she began to dream and she knew her dreams would come true.
As an adult she wanted that for other children and by now she had resources to fulfill another dream. She understood that books stimulate the imagination of children, so in 1995 she started a program in her county–that’s county not country–of giving pre-school children a book a month. In 25 years that program has grown to giving books away to children in four countries. She has given away almost 101 million books to pre-school children! The hundredth million book was donated to the Library of Congress. I don’t know much about how the program works, but apparently communities sign up and children can receive a book a month until they enter kindergarten.
How about that for creative, visionary, down-to-earth genuine humanitarian philanthropy?!!!
As some people in Utah might say, “Good on ya, Dolly!”
Oh! and by the way, here is the URL for the site:
https://imaginationlibrary.com/
Let’s think together again, soon.
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