Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is now available to children in Marlboro County through the Marian Wright Edelman Public Library.

The Imagination Library is a program that sends children ages 0-5 a free book in the email each month until their fifth birthday.

Parents can sign up for the Imagination Library on the MWE website at edelmanpubliclibrary.org and enter their information.

Friends of Marian Wright Edelman Public Libary is the sponsoring organization.

MWE Library Director Bobbie Grooms said the whole premise is to get books in the hands of children.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provides books free of charge to children from birth to age 5 through funding shared by Parton and community partners in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and the Republic of Ireland.

“I am so super excited about the launch of this program,” she said.

MWE has a couple of major sponsorships. One is the Kinney Family Fund, which provides ongoing annual support to make sure the program continues.

Elisabeth McNeil of the Kinney Family Fund said they were just excited to be a part of an effort to combat illiteracy in Marlboro County, starting at the birth of a child. “This international effort has made great strides, and we are very optimistic that it will be able to help the children and future adults in Marlboro County,” stated McNeil.

Grooms said they also received a large grant from Mohawk.

Brian Howard, a community relations specialist at Mohawk, said the company was excited to participate.

“We’re excited and thankful to be able to help make a positive change early with youth,” he said.

Currently, the program has 17 youth registered and is actively accepting registrations for more children. If someone doesn’t have access to online registration, they can come to the library to get registered.

The MWE Library has an online registration form with a donation feature. If anybody in the community wanted to contribute to the project, they could click that link and donate $25.

Grooms said $25 would sponsor one child for one full year.

Participating in the program was simple for Grooms.

“The need is obviously here in our community,” she said. “We have a huge literacy issue in our county. We also have a huge transportation issue in our county, and not everybody can bring their kids to the library to get books.”

For MWE Library officials, this is just another option to put books in the hands of families.

Once a parent registers a child, the books will be delivered right to their front doorstep with no transportation barrier.

“We’re hoping it will instill the love of reading with these young kids,” Grooms said. “If you start from a very early age, grow up with books in the home and find that love and joy of reading, it will grow into

a more literate community and a better future for our kids and family.”

Grooms said they appreciate all of the community support.

“It shows us that not just the two large sponsoring organizations, but all of our community members have given us funds to bring this idea to life,” she said. “It shows the community buy-in of the importance of reading and learning at an early age. So that kind of warms my heart knowing that our communities are behind us.”

Grooms emphasized the need for ongoing support. We can continue this as long as we have the funding available because we do have to pay that $25 per child per year for books.