Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program is hoping to raise enough money to keep giving free books to tens of thousands of kids under the age of 5 in the state of Washington. Lawmakers cut funds for the program in the budget they sent to the governor.
Brooke Fisher-Clark, the nonprofit's executive director, said Imagination Library is now seeking donations to try to become self-sustaining.
“It is the first time in the Dollywood Foundation's 30-year history that a state legislature has ever dropped the funding of an Imagination Library program — that they made a statewide program. So it is significant — not in a good way,” she said.
When the program was established in 2022, it served 15,000 children under age 5. Now there are 121,000 kids enrolled in the program statewide.
Washington state pitched in half the cost of each book, while the rest came from local nonprofit partners, such as libraries and school districts. Imagination Library, which was founded by Parton in 1995, does the administrative work, such as selecting books, and placing and fulfilling orders.
Fisher-Clark said the program mailed books from a warehouse in Tennessee directly to families.
"And so it removes barriers from transportation challenges to income challenges — whatever those circumstances might be that a child resides in," she said. "It wipes those away and brings the book right to the child."
The organization asked the legislature for $7 million over the next two years to sustain and expand the work it does. But lawmakers zeroed that out in the budget as they tackled a multibillion dollar budget deficit.
Fisher-Clark said without the state funds, local nonprofit partners would have to decide whether they can cover the full cost of each book.
“For a lot of them, that's going to be really difficult to do, especially our larger markets — like Spokane County, King County and Pierce County, where those are our largest early learner population centers that have pretty high enrollments,” she said.
Fisher-Clark said Imagination Library hasn't been fully funded by the state in the past, so it had already ramped up grant writing efforts and doing more fundraising to keep up with enrollment. In January, the organization held a benefit concert with American Idol winner Iam Tongi. In August, Imagination Library is the beneficiary of the Over the Edge event in Vancouver, Washington, where donors can rappel 86 feet down the side of the Hilton Vancouver Washington building.
"We're constantly plugging in that public support piece and knowing that the state could go away at any time," Fisher-Clark said. "So, trying to make sure that we have those relationships and that we're doing the outreach should that rainy day occur, which has just happened."
The nonprofit's Washington branch is not alone in its funding trouble. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb slashed funding for that state's Imagination Library branch. Indiana First Lady, Maureen Braun, is now spearheading a fundraising effort for that program.
