Dolly Parton's Imagination Library - Grand Traverse Region
“If you can read, you can do anything, dream anything and be anything.”
- Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton launched the Imagination Library in 1995. Her vision was to inspire a lifelong love of reading by providing books to children every month from birth until their fifth birthday, at no cost to their families. By mailing carefully-selected, age-appropriate books directly to their
homes, Dolly wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she wanted to ensure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.
Today, this award-winning program of the Dollywood Foundation, has gifted over 235 million free books to children in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and The Republic of Ireland. Currently, 1 in 7 children under age 5 across the U.S. are receiving books each month.
Launched in 2016, DPIL GTR is a local Imagination Library affiliate that reaches children in the Grand Traverse Region. We are a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that is run by a committed team of volunteers. Our goal is to promote early literacy and foster a love of reading, by ensuring that young children in our community benefit from their own home library of high-quality books.
We registered our first 24 children in Interlochen in May of 2016. Today, well over 2,900 children in Antrim, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska and Leelanau Counties are receiving books each month and almost 2,000 more have ‘graduated’ from the program (on their fifth birthday).
Working alongside our sister affiliate DPIL Benzie, we are pleased to say that every child under age 5 in the 5-county Grand Traverse Region is now eligible to enroll!