How Dolly Parton is fostering a love of reading in kids across Australia
- The country star's Imagination Library provides a free book to more than two million kids worldwide every month.
- The program has been running in Australia since 2014 and serves even remote communities.
On a remote cattle station 100km outside Katherine, three young children eagerly await a mail bag that brings each of them a special parcel once a month.
The parcels are addressed personally to them and contain a specially-selected brand new book.
Mum Rebecca Mohr-Bell on Mathison Station says it's a source of great excitement for her kids aged four and almost two, and increasingly her baby as well.
"They're desperate for us to read the book to them. It shows that we think the books are important. It teaches them about looking after books and that reading is a valuable skill to have.
They love it," she told SBS News.
Mathison Station may be a world away from Hollywood but the books are thanks to one of its most prized stars Dolly Parton, whose Imagination Library gifts books to more than two million children aged from birth to five across the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia every single month.
The Imagination Library, funded by Parton's charity The Dollywood Foundation and local community partnerships, is one of many philanthropic initiatives the 76-year-old has directed, including supporting those affected by natural disasters and providing college scholarships.
Other projects have remained under the radar, some for years. Parton has allegedly been quietly paying for the band uniforms of many Tennessee high schools for years, while she reportedly used the songwriting loyalties she earned from Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” to buy a mall in Nashville that supports the surrounding Black neighbourhood.
And in late 2020 we learned of one of her greatest gifts of all:
a $1m donation to coronavirus vaccine research that supported the development of the Moderna vaccine
.Last week, Parton received the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy at Gotham Hall in New York. But before receiving her award, she told the Associated Press she didn't do it for attention.
"But look! I'm getting a lot of attention by doing it," she added.
Dolly Parton laughs at the idea that she is some sort of secret philanthropist. “I don’t do it for attention,” she told The Associated Press in an interview, shortly before she received the Carnegie Medal. Source: AAP / Andres Kudacki/AP
"I never know what I’m going to do or why I’m gonna do it. I just see a need and if I can fill it, then I will," she said.
Parton was motivated to create the Imagination Library by her father's inability to read or write.
The program has been running in Australia since 2014, thanks to a partnership between Imagination Library and community impact organisation United Way Australia. It's managed and funded by local affiliates and partners in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Its impact is as vast as the land it serves.
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And it's in remote areas where Parton's Imagination Library can be its most effective.
Towns such as Doomadgee in remote parts of Queensland are seeing “marked improvements” in school readiness among children who have received Imagination Library books, according to the Imagination Library website.
Mandy Tootell at Katherine Isolated Children's Services (KICS) organises the program for 60 children stretching across around a quarter of the Territory, including in the Indigenous communities of Yarralin, Amanbidji and Bulla Camp.
"Our children are all remote and they are socially and geographically isolated," she told SBS News.
"Dolly Parton's Imagination Library targets those first four years, where getting books in hands counts. It helps to prepare children for life-long learning and a love of books and that's what encourages literacy."
Corbin's mother Rebecca Mohr-Bell says receiving the books every month is very exciting for her three children. Source: SBS News
"The feedback is amazing. I would love to see the Imagination Library grow."
Ms Mohr-Bell said getting hold of books for remote families isn't easy. For them, the newsagents in Katherine, which holds a small selection of books, is 100km away while the nearest bookshop is in Darwin, four hours away.
Buying online means a trip to the post office in Katherine.
"Books aren't a given in every household," she said. "So for those people, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library is amazing."
