Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library part of community funding helping kids learn to read in Davoren Park
The queen of country music, Dolly Parton, is serving a cup of ambition to a special group of South Aussie children.
North & North East
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A literacy program set up by the queen of country is being rolled out in Adelaide is changing lives one page at a time.
Dolly Parton, has partnered her Imagination Library charity with United Way SA and Renewal SA’s community grants program to supply a year of books for 40 Davoren Park kids.
Renewal SA’s community grants program, Playford Alive Initiatives Fund, has given $5000 towards the program that delivers a book pack direct to a child’s home each month to inspire a lifelong love of reading.
The latest Australian Early Development Census shows Davoren Park has the lowest literacy rate of any suburb within the City of Playford, with one in two children deemed vulnerable or at risk.
Since its inception in Tennessee in 1995, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has gifted more than 150 million books to children globally.
United Way SA began its affiliation with the organisation in 2013 and since then has rolled out the program to nine suburbs in Adelaide’s north.
United Way CEO Emma Brooke said she was pleased to be moving the program forward.
“We’ve got 100 kids on our waiting list, so every bit of funding we get we try to open up in a new area,” she said.
“Around 90% of a child’s brain development occurs in the first five years so exposing a child to reading early helps a child start school strong.”
Mrs Brooke said her team had seen improvements in school readiness among children who have received Imagination Library books.
“We see every day the life changing impact this program has on families,” she said.
“I had the mother of twins crying the other day as she said to her kids ‘You know how we have to take books back to the library? Well, guess what? We don’t have to take these books back’.”
United Way SA aims to get another 150 children onto the program this year.
The Playford Alive Initiatives Fund, has provided more than $730,000 in grants to community groups and not-for-profit organisations since 2009.
Playford Alive is one of the largest master planned communities under development in Adelaide’s north.
jason.katsaras@news.com.au
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