The Dollywood Foundation is pleased to announce that it is partnering with Signal Centers on January 1, 2021 to continue providing one book a month to Hamilton County children from birth to age five with engaging, high-quality books, delivered directly to their home, at no cost to families.
“Signal Centers is incredibly excited about helping young families thrive, especially during these challenging times, by prompting parents to gather a child into their laps and read a book together. Reading supports early literacy, emotional bonding and opens a child to a world of possibilities, " said Donna McConnico, CEO of Signal Centers.
Created in 1995, The Dollywood Foundation launched Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to inspire a love of reading and learning in children. Dolly wanted to share her life and legacy as an inspiration to all children to "Dream More, Learn More, Care More and Be More."
Signal Centers is grateful to the United Way of Greater Chattanooga for sustaining the Imagination Library for the last 17 years and is delighted to continue this legacy of helping every family in the county have access to engaging books for young children. To date, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and United Way of Greater Chattanooga have provided over 3 million books to children throughout Southeast Tennessee.
“We are excited that Signal Centers is taking lead with the program to complement their various early childhood initiatives that serve children and families,” stated Lesley Scearce, CEO of United Way of Greater Chattanooga, “This will ensure that United Way can continue to deploy resources to projects, programs and efforts where they are most needed as our community responds to short and long-term effects of the pandemic.” Signal Centers will begin local fundraising efforts now to help sustain the program and ensure a seamless transition to families as they take the lead.
With over 12,000 children in Hamilton County enrolled in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, it costs $25 to provide one child with Imagination Library books for one year and $125 to provide the entire Imagination Library—60 books—to one child for five years. The Governor's Early Literacy Foundation (GELF) provides 50% of the cost of providing the books, therefore donations will be doubled!
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is available to all age-eligible Tennessee children through a unique public-private partnership with GELF and affiliate programs in each of Tennessee’s 95 counties. “We are grateful for our local partners, like Signal Centers, for understanding the importance of early literacy and for helping us build lifelong learners in Tennessee by giving the gift of books to children in the community,” said James Pond, President of the Governor's Early Literacy Foundation.
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