Most of us are from the generation that was taught that you work for everything you have, you don’t ask anyone for anything, you say please and thank you, and you don’t believe everything you hear or read.Well, you can believe this. You can get something for nothing and here’s how. For those of us with children, the United Way and Laurens County School Districts 55 and 56 began offering a program to assist pre-school aged children with reading levels to promote school readiness.This program, called the Imagination Library, is available to any child age under age five in Laurens County. By enrolling, children receive a book a month delivered to their homes from the Imagination Library program. Ideally, a child enrolling in Imagination Library at birth would start school at age five with a library of 60 books of his very own. The books each child receives are hardback, age appropriate books that are pre-approved by a national board of educators. Have you priced hardback children’s books lately? They are expensive! United Way and the two School Districts pick up this tab for any child living in this community at an average price of $35 per year per child. Imagination Library was the brainchild of country music legend, Dolly Parton. Because Parton was from a very impoverished home, she shares that her mother used to read the same book over and over to her. She says she remembers as a child thinking that if she grew up to become wealthy, she would make sure that children of all ages had the books they needed to succeed. Five years ago, in 2002, United Way and the School Districts began offering this program to the children of this community. Like Dolly, we share the same dream for Laurens County’s children. We want to make sure that all children arrive to school prepared to learn and prepared to read.Since we began the program, over 3,500 children have benefited from Imagination Library and over 65,000 books have been delivered to our children! We believe it’s an investment in our children and an investment in this community’s future.If you have children and you have not enrolled them in our Imagination Library program, what are you waiting for? Find out more by checking this program out on our website at www.uwlc-online.orgWe’d like nothing better than for every child in our community to have that library in their homes. And, the best news is that this program is FREE. Now that’s something for nothing!
Posted by GoLaurens.com Guest Blogger at 8:11 PM
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