Our Club program on Tuesday was a presentation by our Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library committee of Terrie Sanders, Lisa Phillips, Bill Crump, Rowin Floth, Katie Cloudman, Frank Wiley, Peter Meade and Dave Sanders
 
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book giftingprogram that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth until they begin school, no matter their family’s income. After launching in 1995 by Dolly,the“Book Lady”, the program grew quickly. First books were only distributed to children living in Sevier County,Tennessee whereDolly grewup. It becamesuch asuccess that in 2000,a nationalreplicationeffort wasunderway. This program soonexpended to allofNorthAmerica and subsequentlyEurope and Australia. Todate, more than 126millionbookshave been given away to ages 0-5. The run rate now is about 1.4 million books per month!

 

The brain is the only organ not fully developed at birth; this educational program enables children to grow and enhance their brain functions. It’s “the beginning of the Rotary brain.”

Our Club program began in May 2019 and is budgeted at $5,000 per year. We have focused on the Guadalupe community, about 0.8 sq. mi., with a 6,597 population; it’s of manageable size for us. To date, we have 88 Guadalupe children signed up, while we are targeting 300 total children. We are making contacts in the community through their Outreach Program, and presence in community buildings, functions and events.

We will be having a fundraiser to help support this effort with an Alamo movie showing in March 2020.
We work this Program through our Sun Lakes Foundation 2000 as a non-profit and we are glad to be helping in this area, assisting early educational growth in a needy area.