In 1996, Dolly Parton launched an effort to benefit the children of her home county in east Tennessee. She wanted children to be excited about books and moreover to insure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.
She mailed a brand new, age appropriate book each month to every child under 5 in Sevier County. With the arrival of every child’s first book, the classic The Little Engine That Could, every child could now experience the joy of finding their very own book in their mail box. These moments continue each month until the child turns 5—and in their very last month in the program they receive Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come.
How it works: A community must make the program accessible to all preschool children in their area. The community pays for the books and mailing, promotes the program, registers the children, and enters the information into the database.
From there The Dollywood Foundation takes over and manages the system to deliver the books to the home. You can find out more of the operational details on other pages in this website – so what are waiting for! Hundreds of communities are providing books to hundreds of thousands of children.
Sis put me onto this, it is a program available in USA, Canada and UK and is really fantastic...i can't think of any reason why communities would not want to get on board with this... Good stuff from DP. Further reading.
