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Dolly Parton’s beloved free-book program is getting a major expansion after her death

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Dolly Parton’s beloved free-book program is getting a major expansion after her death

Nearly a month after country icon Dolly Parton passed away, her legacy not only lives on, but continues to grow.

Beyond her legendary catalog of hit songs (and the social issues they highlighted), Parton was perhaps best known for her philanthropy. In 1988, she founded her pro-education non-profit the Dollywood Foundation, and in 1995, she launched its most famous program, the Imagination Library.

The Imagination Library offers a free book every month to children under age 5. In the 31 years since its founding, the program has provided more than 330 million books to upwards of 3 million children internationally. What started as an effort to provide books to children in her childhood community of Sevier County, Tennessee, has since grown to serve all 50 states and countries including Canada, Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

It’s in the U.K. that the latest major expansion to the Imagination Library is coming, as London doubles the size of its program in the wake of Parton’s passing.

The Imagination Library previously served just five of London’s 32 boroughs. Moving forward, it will serve 10 boroughs, making an additional 157,000 children eligible for access to monthly books.

Jeff Conyers, president of the Dollywood Foundation, told the BBC that Parton would have been “incredibly proud” to see the program grow even after her death.

“Dolly always wanted the Imagination Library to be something that lived on for generations into the future,” Conyers said.



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