COLUMBUS, OH (WLIO)- First lady Fran DeWine had a goal of getting books into the hands of kids in all 88 counties in the state. So, she has been working hard to promote getting kids birth to 5 years old signed up for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which mails out free books to the kids each month. This year, Ohio has 362,000 books hitting mailboxes each month, which is the most of any state that is using the Imagination Library program.
”So, we are at a little over 50%,” says DeWine. “But the next 10% of kids is going to be the hardest to get. We have to go find them, you know, why aren’t we getting them. So, we have to go and find them. We have to go into neighborhoods, we have to go into any place that works with young children. We are really trying to sign them up with they are born. We try at our birthing hospitals, sign them up the day they are born and then we know they are going to get all 60 books before they turn 5-years-old.”
Because all of Ohio’s counties have taken to the program, Dolly Parton made a stop in the Buckeye State to congratulate Mrs. DeWine for her hard work.
“She came in August, and it was exciting to have her and to have everyone listen to her about how passionate she is about the programing,” adds DeWine.
But Mrs. DeWine wasn’t the only one in her family to promote getting signed up for the Imagination Library, Governor Mike DeWine made sure that parents got the message about the program.
“He couldn’t help himself,” says DeWine. “If he saw a family pushing a stroller or a buggy with little kids in it, he would stop and say, ‘Are your kids signed up for the imagination library?’ And immediately they would start a story, no matter where we were. ‘Yes’, and they would tell a tail, they read together more, the older ones are reading to the younger ones.”
If you would like to sign your child up for the program, you can log on to www.ohioimaginationlibrary.org.
