Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to send books to River Region kids
The River Region United Way has partnered with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to provide children under age 5 with a new book every month.
The Imagination Library program was established in 1995, but this is the first time it is being offered in the River Region.
The United Way wants to reach at least 10,000 children in the program's first year of operation. In just the first month, 2,200 children were enrolled, said Jannah Bailey, CEO and President of River Region United Way.
"And it went hand in hand with the Literacy Act, with us knowing that we lost a lot of learning time during COVID,” Bailey said. “And it is an opportunity for us to do something bigger than just talking about it.”
Bailey took over the United Way earlier this year and has spoken since then about the importance of the United Way working with other non-profits within the Montgomery community.
State Sen. Kirk Hatcher and Barbara Cooper, secretary of the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education, joined Bailey and W. Rhea Ingram, Ph.D., chair and chief volunteer officer of the River Region United Way Board of Directors at the news conference at the RSA Helen Hunt Early Learning Center.
“What a wonderful Christmas gift every single month, right, birthday gift, Easter gift, Christmas gift, whatever we want to call it,” Ingram said. “It is fantastic. But we could not do it without a collaboration of our community.”
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At the Thursday morning news conference, United Way volunteers read to several young children. Some of the kids took the opportunity to scream and run around the feet of UW board members, interrupting them with shouts as the importance of literacy and teaching was discussed.
Bailey said she looks at the young kids and wonders if they have books at home.
Early childhood literacy has come to the front of many conversations as the Alabama Literacy Act is rolled out this school year. Under that legislation, children who are not reading on grade level by the end of third grade will be required to repeat the year. The Literacy Act provides some exceptions.
ACAP literacy scores released this past summer show that only around a third of Montgomery Public School third graders were reading on grade level.
Forest Avenue Academic Magnet and MacMillan International Academy for Humanities, Communications and Technology were the best scoring schools in the district, with only about 1% and 2% not meeting grade level, respectively. The next best schools for reading performance were Bear Exploration Center for Mathematics, Science and Technology School with about 4% not on grade level; Wilson Elementary School, the only non-magnet school in the top five, with about 10%; and Carver Elementary and Arts Magnet School, with about 11.5%.
Dunbar-Ramer School, Davis Elementary School and Nixon Elementary School were at the bottom of the list, with more than 60% of third graders reading below grade level. Nixon Elementary School is now a conversion charter.
“And I think that we are building children from infancy all the way up until they graduate from high school,” Bailey said. “And, hopefully, we will start seeing the tide turn with these reading initiatives that we've got going.”
Sign up or donate
Parents can sign up their children at https://www.rruw.org/dpil on the River Region United Way site. Those interested in supporting the program can donate by texting Dolly22 to 71777.
Jemma Stephenson is the children and education reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser. She can be reached at jstephenson@gannett.com or 334-261-1569.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to send books to River Region kids
