When Country music royalty visits The Goat rock station to drum up support for literacy it’s an absolute no-brainer.
Some 230 kids, up to five-years-old on the Saskatchewan-side of Lloydminster, get age-appropriate books every month in the mail. The Lloydminster Learning Council and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library have been coordinating the effort.
But the need remains to get funding to deliver the books in the mail. There’s also the hope that the program could be extended to toddlers on the Alberta side of Lloydminster.
Amanda Lanoway, regional lead for the program in Saskatchewan, says over some 30 years, the book-gifting program has been operating in five countries. In Canada, about 60,000 books are mailed out each month.
“Lloydminster Learning Council has been a great partner and continues to do so. But we just need sustainable funding. We are looking to, at minimum, sustain these 233 children getting their books once a month to at least the end of the year – so at least another six months. And hopefully by doing that, we will garner some more sustainable funding,” says Lanoway.
The program was previously funded with a SaskPower grant for three years.
“It’s $900 for those 233 kids to continue to get books. So, it’s $3.85 per book per child. Thankfully, we just had a local realtor, Amanda Warner from Remax in Lloydminster, step up and sponsor that. She was able to secure the books for June.”
The program is seeking a sponsor for July and then hopefully a monthly sponsor to cover the rest of the year. Any child under five years on the Saskatchewan side can be enrolled.
“If they sign up for that entire time, they will acquire a collection of 60 brand new, age appropriate books, which is just wonderful to have in their home. The welcome book is always The Little Engine That Could, because Dolly Parton loves that book.”
Dolly Parton says that her father was the wisest man she ever knew, but he could not read. So, she often wondered what her father’s life would have been like if he was literate.
“Kids have the experience of feeling special going to the mailbox. It encourages parent connections. Right away kids want to sit down and read that book. And re-read, and re-read that book. We are hopefully inspiring a generation of children to love reading and literacy, and become avid readers and learners for their whole lives,” notes Lanoway.
You can get in touch with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library for Lloydminster or the Lloydminster Learning Council to share how you would like to foster the love of reading, beginning at an early age.
