Known for her perfect pitch, songwriting, philanthropy and flamboyant fashion, Dolly Parton today is a poster woman of superstardom.
Her dedication to altruistic causes, including early childhood education, endears her to people across political spectrums, religions, races and “lots in life,” said 20th District Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia.
Though, when referring to her childhood in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee, Parton has described her family as “dirt poor.”
Both in landscape and lifestyle, the country music icon’s upbringings weren’t so different from those of some children in Lewis, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum and other rural counties in Southwest Washington. A key difference, however, is that children in Washington up to the ages of 5 now can have age-appropriate books sent to their homes every month at no cost to them, regardless of their ZIP code — thanks to Parton herself.
Next week, on Aug. 15, Parton will visit Washington to celebrate the program’s foothold across each of the state’s 39 counties. Founded in 1995, the Dolly Parton Imagination Library mailed book program now has more than 65,000 children enrolled across the state and more than 2 million worldwide. Attendance to the event will be invitation only, but it will be streamed live on TVW and on the Imagination Library of Washington’s social media channels. During her visit, the governor and lieutenant governor will proclaim Aug. 15 as “Imagination Library of Washington Day.”
Just as the singer can take credit for the effort’s benefits to early childhood learning, a few key players from Lewis and Cowlitz counties can take credit for scaling Washington’s Imagination Library into the tens of thousands — enough to grab Parton’s attention.
Parton’s book project was first brought to Washington by Brooke Fisher-Clark, a Rotarian in Longview. Then, with the help of the United Way of Lewis County, the United Way of Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties, and the Twin Cities Rotary Club, was brought to Lewis County. As of last December, according to previous reporting in The Chronicle, Lewis County had 2,624 children registered.
Now, Angela French, a 14-year United Way of Lewis County employee, and Fisher-Clark head the Imagination Library of Washington.
Without them at the helm, a Vancouver legislator and a Centralia lawmaker whose passion for the program started at home, Parton’s visit to Washington wouldn’t have become a reality. More importantly, the tens of thousands of children across the state wouldn’t have benefitted from the Imagination Library.
“My children (were) involved in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library for many, many years very early on,” Abbarno said, later adding, “We’d sit down and read with them. It created a really cool opportunity for our family to turn off the TV and try and put away all the other external distractions to focus on us and reading. And I think it improved their kindergarten readiness.”
Beyond their reading comprehension, Abbarno said, it created lasting positive changes in his household by solidifying a tradition of reading the same books and discussing them, even as his son and daughter kids near their tweens.
When Abbarno was elected into the state Legislature, he and Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, co-sponsored a bill to have the program funded half through the United Way of the Pacific Northwest and half through the state’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. It passed nearly unanimously, Abbarno said.
“This is not a partisan issue and it should never be a partisan issue when you’re talking about early learning and reading and kindergarten readiness,” he said. “About a year later, they had asked whether I could help with support for some additional funding. … Now, we’re here.”
When Parton visits on Aug. 15, Abbarno will be one of the event’s featured speakers.
According to a news release from the state Department of Children, Youth and Families, the program has distributed more than 1.6 million books across Washington, and, prior to the Centralia and Vancouver lawmakers’ legislation, was only in a “handful” of regions in the Evergreen State.
“It really is a Southwest Washington origin story,” Abbarno said, later adding, “One thing I’ve always said about Lewis County, and I think it applies to a lot of rural areas, is how giving we are. It’s just amazing to see how the Rotary groups, United Way of Lewis County, just kind of circled the wagons on this issue and said, ‘Look, we’ve identified a problem with early learning and kindergarten readiness. We found a program.’ And they just went all at it.”
