A smiling woman and young girl look at a book by a mailbox in the foreground, set against a soft, blurred outdoor background with promotional text and graphics below.

A package with a child’s name on it can open a whole world of stories. You can help bring that excitement to a local mailbox. In 1995, Dolly Parton founded the Imagination Library to honor her father. She knew him as one of the smartest, hardest-working people in her life, yet he had never had the opportunity to learn to read or write. Dolly wanted children to grow up with what he had missed: books of their own and the chance to fall in love with reading from the start. Today, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library sends enrolled children a free, high-quality, age-appropriate book each month, from birth until their fifth birthday. Here in South Central Illinois, we at United Way of South Central Illinois partner with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and Regional Office of Education #13 to bring those books to children in Jefferson, Marion, Washington and Clinton counties. More than 2,300 local children currently receive a book in their mailbox every month. Your $16 gift helps provide one local child with a full year of books—12 books to call their own. With your support, children can build home libraries, and parents and caregivers have more opportunities to read with them. You help children explore stories, ideas and possibilities before they ever enter a classroom. Participation is free for families, with no income requirement. Every eligible child deserves an equal opportunity to read, imagine, learn and dream. Give a child a year of books. Make a one-time gift of $16, help several children receive books, or become a monthly supporter to keep books arriving year after year. Your gift can turn a mailbox delivery into a bedtime story—and the beginning of a lifelong love of reading.

United Way of South Central Illinois

Give a Child a Year of Books

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