Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
2024 Year in Review!
It’s been almost 10 years - in March of 2025, the Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program in Chaffee County will celebrate 10 years supporting our local young children. This outstanding program mails a free age-appropriate book to every registered child each month. All children in Chaffee County are eligible from birth until they turn 5 years old. The program began with a partnership between the Salida Sunrise Rotary and Buena Vista Rotary Clubs, and it is now sponsored by Salida Sunrise Rotary.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library promotes and encourages a love of reading among children and helps ensure that children enter kindergarten with a strong ability to read and an eagerness to learn. It also promotes parent-child interaction and bonding. If a child is registered at birth and remains in the program until he or she turns five, the child will accumulate 60 high quality books.
This program has been very successful in our community. Since our launch in 2015, and as of December 31, 2024, over 58,300 books have been mailed to over 2,190 children. In addition, over 1,090 children have turned five and graduated from the program.
In 2024 alone, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program in Chaffee County put over 6,404 quality, age-appropriate books into the hands of 722 registered children. There were 136 new registrations during 2024 (of which 80 were new births), and 128 children turned five and graduated from the program. At the end of 2024, we had 519 registered children. This number is down slightly from last year because of a slight change in our service area that occurred in January, 2024. While we had originally included children from the Salida and Buena Vista School Districts, we now are focused on children living in Chaffee County zipcodes. This is due to the introduction of DPIL affiliates in Fremont County and Park County.
In 2024, we were thrilled to once again hold our usual registration event at the Chaffee Home and Garden Show as well as to host a DPIL table at a local Easter Egg Hunt, a Buena Vista Public Library Early Years Expo, the Salida Lucky Ducky Race event, and local preschools.
We continued to see outstanding support from the community with a great response to our year-end fundraising efforts. For the fifth year, contributors could submit donations through Colorado Gives as well as through the mail. We were also successful in our pursuit of additional grant dollars. In 2024 this program participated in an HHSB Family Fund grant, benefitted from a state mini-grant, and received another generous contribution from the Salida Regional Library. Our great partnerships with the Salida Regional Library, Buena Vista Public Library, Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center’s Family Birthing Center, and the Salida Early Childhood Center remain very strong.
One change as we enter 2025 is an increase to our costs of books. The Dollywood Foundation has reluctantly had to increase the target cost of mailed books that affiliates must cover. Despite the many actions they have taken over past years to keep the overall costs down, the continued increases in USPS mailing rates have now required a target cost increase from roughly $25/year/child to $31/year/child. Because of the Imagination Library of Colorado’s state program and financial support (which covers half of the Colorado affiliates’ book costs each month), our local DPIL program can provide 12 months of books for two children for $31.
We continue to hear wonderful feedback from the children and families. The comments shared by the registered children themselves, as well by as their families, confirm the positive impact of these free books being mailed directly to the children. We expect to conduct our third parent feedback survey in the fall of 2025.
Through this wonderful program, you and our other generous contributors are offering the young children in Chaffee County a foundation for literary skills that will set them up for success in the future. Rotarians and our generous and supportive community can be very proud of this program and what it is accomplishing!
