Greeter: Ken Beurmann

Invocation: John Schuler

Flag Salute: Steven Rodrigue

Song: John Calanchini + Kathy Scrivner, “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton

GUESTS:

• Christine Diaz with Sen. Shannon Grove’s Office and East Rotary (Aaron Falk)
• Ivan Carrasco, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (John Sampson)
• Chase Nunneley, Assistant Treasurer-Tax Collector with the County of Kern (Jordan Kaufman)

GOOD NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• Mike McCoy announced the opening of the Italian Heritage Farmhouse on Sept. 28 at Kern County Museum, made possible by the Italian Heritage Dante Association and the Italian Heritage Foundation, and also the Waterman Foundation.
• Ashley Vorhees announced the CASA Superhero Run on Oct. 25 at the Park at River Walk, which supports CASA’s mission to advocate for children who need a voice.
• President Jeff Gutierrez read an apology from last week’s guest speaker Becky Skaggs of Providence Classical Academy, for providing inaccurate statistics.

PROGRAM

Aaron Falk introduced Rachel King, Senior Regional Director at the Dollywood Foundation, who oversees USA Regional Directors as well as growth and support of the Imagination Library in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and Washington. She comes to us via Tennessee (foundation headquarters) and England before that.

Dolly Parton launched her Imagination Library in 1995 in her home county in east Tennessee as a way to foster a love of reading among preschool children and their families. She was inspired by her father, who was “the smartest man I have ever known but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all of his dreams,” Parton said.

“Inspiring kids to love to read became my mission,” she said.

The first book order in 1995 was over 1,700. Today, the program sends more than 1 million books per month to children around the world.

Here’s how the program works:

• Local partners (like nonprofits, schools, or governments) sign up to sponsor the program in their area. They handle fundraising and enrollment support.
• Parents or guardians register their child (birth through age 5) with the local program. Registration can be done online or with paper forms.
• A committee of early childhood experts chooses age-appropriate, high-quality books each year.
• Once enrolled, each child receives a free, brand-new book in the mail every month, addressed to them personally (no matter what the family income).
• Children stay enrolled until their 5th birthday, at which point they “graduate” from the program. By then, they can have a personal library of up to 60 books.

The program, now in its 30th year, has given out 250 million books to kids in five countries. One in seven children in the United States 0-5 years old receive Imagination Library books.

It costs about $31 per child, per year to mail books out. In California, our government covers 50% of that cost, thanks to the bipartisan passing of Senate Bill 1183 (co-author Shannon Grove). Today, the program reaches 65% of eligible 2.3 million children in California. Parents are never asked for funding.

The program started in Kern County in 2023, and so far, has mailed out 130,000 books. There are about 66,000 children ages 0-5 in Kern County.

To sustain, maintain, and grow the program locally, organizers are seeking a nonprofit local program partner, as well as Advisory Committee members, and, of course, funding (grants, foundation, corporate, individual giving).

King left time some time for a Q&A:

• Hoping to provide books for every child 0-5? Yes, every child.
• Partner with Give Big Kern? Yes, but it was mostly an awareness campaign.
• How can we donate? donate.imaginationlibrary.com
• Work with educators/First 5? It’s up to each local program on how to best get the word out.
• Why books in Spanish? Bilingual books have both English and Spanish written on pages (not just Spanish), which supports cognitive development and literacy for all in monolingual household.
• Are books shared/recycled after their use? Some families hold onto their books. Some put them in shared libraries.

Learn even more about the program at imaginationlibrary.com/usa.