Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
2025 Year in Review!
2025 was another great year for Chaffee County’s Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program!
In late February, we celebrated 10 years of the Chaffee County program with fun Storytime celebrations at both the Salida Regional Library and the Buena Vista Public Library.
An exciting update to the program occurred in early June when families in Colorado could now choose whether to receive mostly English books with the occasional bilingual English/Spanish book - or - ALL bilingual English/Spanish books. This was an option many families across our state desired.
In August, the results of a rigorous independent evaluation about Imagination Library from the Colorado Evaluation & Action Lab were published. Salida School District was one of four Colorado school districts to participate in the study. This study found that Imagination Library is helping prepare children for kindergarten by significantly improving early literacy skills. As Jack Tate, President and CEO of Imagination Library Colorado, stated, “This study confirms what we’ve long believed: the Imagination Library is helping kids arrive at school ready to read and succeed.” More information about this study is available at: https://www.imaginationlibrarycolorado.org/_files/ugd/2844ce_6d1cab1f32de47b69284ebfda5a10652.pdf
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (https://imaginationlibrary.com/usa/) 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. Since our launch in 2015, and as of December 31, 2025, over 64,500 books have been mailed to over 2,370 children. In addition, over 1,200 children have turned five and graduated from the program.
In 2025 alone, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program in Chaffee County put over 6,190 quality, age-appropriate books into the hands of 656 registered children. There were 143 new registrations during 2025 (of which 72 were new births), and 114 children turned five and graduated from the program. At the end of 2025, we had 526 registered children.
In the fall, we performed our third family feedback survey to hear what the families of our registered children think about our program’s impact. Here are just a few of the survey results: 95% believe “The books are helping prepare my child for kindergarten”; 96% said “My child displays excitement and joy when a new book arrives each month”; 85% indicated “Other members of the family are benefiting from having Imagination Library books in the home”; and 76% said “My child has an increased interest in looking at books on their own.”
Of those families who responded to the survey, 49% said that “Imagination Library is the primary source of books for our child.” This shows why the Imagination Library program is so important for our community – we are getting books into the hands of our local young children, many who would otherwise have fewer books in their home.
We truly appreciate our many generous contributors who are offering the young children in Chaffee County a foundation for literary skills that will set them up for success in the future.
For more information, please reach out to us at chaffeeimaginationlibrary@gmail.com.
