Inspired by its local success in Sevier County, the Imagination Library went statewide in Tennessee in 2004, while efforts to roll out the program on a national level began in earnest back in 2000. By 2006 it was in Canada, with the U.K. coming onboard the following year. Currently, the Imagination Library distributes books to 1.8 million children throughout the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and Australia.
The organization employs two executive directors, one in the U.S., and another based in Edinburgh, Scotland, who oversees the program throughout the U.K. and Ireland. Five regional directors, two each in the U.S. and U.K., and one in Canada assist them. Launched in 2013 in Australia, where currently more than 6,000 children are receiving books, the program is delivered under a partnership agreement with United Way Australia.
“It’s very, very important to us to make sure that children’s experience is reflected in the books that they receive through the Imagination Library,” says U.K. Executive Director Marion Gillooly. “We take great care to look at diversity in terms of ethnicity and family composition and different types of story, different characters. Females as the main character where we can.
With such a relatively small core staff, the Imagination Library’s sustained success and ultimate growth depends on the many partnerships that have developed since the program began. “Those partners that we work with to deliver books to 44,000 children in the U.K. and nearly 6,000 children in Ireland, all of those people are fundraising to pay for the books, and posting the books to the children,” says Gillooly. “We don’t have to pay for any of their overhead.
“United Way of the Greater Dayton area has actually been our biggest funder for the project because they could see how Dolly would make all the different things that they do work,” says Colón. “And Soin Medical Center here in Greene County realized that higher literacy means better health outcomes, and they became major donors. The whole community pulled together.
Good to know.
jackmulligan necesito que Dolly sea nuestra madrina o algo