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GIVE A GIFT TO A CHILD: A LIFELONG LOVE OF READING

The Sullivan County Imagination Library and its partners, the Kingsport and Bristol Chambers of Commerce, need your support in helping local children become lifelong readers.  This project is a model of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library that was launched in 1996 for the children in her hometown of Sevier County, Tennessee.  The Imagination Library is a specially chosen collection of books designed to spark a lifelong love of reading.  All children who are between birth and five years old, and are residents of Sullivan County (including Bluff City, Bristol, and Kingsport), are eligible to register.  Children will begin receiving an age-appropriate book of their very own each month in the mail until they reach five years of age—sixty books in all if signed up at birth.  Enrolling a child in the Sullivan County Imagination Library is done at no cost to the parent—simply our gift of reading to a child.

The evaluation of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library by the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation (a highly respected education research firm) states that:

• Parents overwhelmingly report that Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program is effective at increasing time spent reading with children, making children more interested in books, making parents more comfortable reading to children, and increasing parent awareness of their children’s reading levels.
• A child’s excitement about the arrival of books in the mail was strongly associated with parent reports of program effectiveness
• The greatest effects were shown for families that needed literacy support the most: those with lower education levels, higher incidence of lone-parents, and with lower total numbers of children’s books.

It is estimated that Sullivan County has approximately 8,500 eligible children for whom we desire to find sponsors.  Your generous gift of $27 is needed to assure that ONE child will receive a book each month per year.  Please understand that the more you give, the more children we can serve.  Of course, we encourage you to consider endowment funding to guarantee the success of children for years to come.  Individuals and / or organizations that desire to make a financial contribution to sponsor children for the Sullivan County Imagination Library project should make checks payable to, and send their tax-deductible donation to:

Sullivan County Imagination Library

249 Pactolus Road,
Kingsport, TN 37663

To use a credit card go to www.governorsfoundation.org and be sure to designate Sullivan County.

All fields are required.

printable contribution form