Imagination Library
Register for Imagination Library
If you would like to support the Imagination Library with a monetary donation, please click here. A $50 gift will ensure that one child receives one book a month for one year.
Why it matters
90% of a child’s brain is developed by the age of four. Yet by age three, a child in poverty will hear 30 million fewer words than a child in a middle-income home.
A child born to a low-income home has only a 48% chance of educational success; that success rate drops to 10% by age three if that child is not stimulated through reading and creative play.
What we've done
United Way has partnered with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to to create literacy-rich environments where children are – in the home and in childcare settings. Children enrolled in the Imagination Library receive a free book in the mail every month for the first five years of life.
In 2010, the number of children receiving books rose from 3,000 to 10,000.
Our goals for this year and the future
2011 - 2012
- Connect and train 500 Reading Navigators that will work directly with individual families to demonstrate and coach on the practice of reading in the home for 20 minutes a day, including enrolling those families in Imagination Library.
2018
- Have 80% of children entering kindergarten ready to succeed.
Our partners
In addition to United Way, the following individuals and organizations are partners in this effort: Congressman Sander Levin, the Early Childhood Investment Corporation, General Motors, the GM Foundation, the HighScope Educational Research Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, the Max M. & Marjorie Fisher Foundation, Panera Bread and The Skillman Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.