by Mike Hudgins
On August 25, the world lost Dolly Parton. Her music and personality brought joy to millions, but her legacy reaches far beyond the songs she left behind. Sometime this month, and every month after, children across the Bitterroot Valley will go to their mailboxes and find another book waiting for them, courtesy of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
The program mails a free book each month to children from birth to age five. Here in Ravalli County, Syble Solomon has helped make sure Dolly’s mission reaches local families.
In the days following Parton’s death, interest in the program surged.
Solomon said the local program would typically receive two or three new registrations at a time, or maybe 10 following an event. The night after Parton’s death, 50 children were registered.
When Solomon went to process them, she found 17,000 children nationwide already waiting to be registered.
Within a week, about 80 new children had been registered locally.
Solomon said the response was another reminder of just how far Dolly’s influence reached.
“I have found it incredibly overwhelming,” Solomon said of the worldwide reaction to Parton’s death.
Solomon had admired Dolly long before becoming involved with the Imagination Library. About 25 years ago, while starting her own business, she read biographies of successful people she respected, including Dolly.
“She was just authentic and believed in herself,” Solomon said.
Dolly started the Imagination Library in 1995 in her home county in Tennessee. What began as a local effort eventually spread across the country and internationally.
Solomon brought the program to Ravalli County about six years ago. Before getting started, she contacted other Imagination Library programs around Montana to learn how they were funded and organized.
With support from the local Elks Lodge and Sapphire Community Health serving as the nonprofit partner, the Ravalli County program became official that May. Solomon’s grandson and his cousin were the first two children registered, followed by 30 children from Head Start.
That first group of 32 received their books in July.
Today, the program averages about 1,250 to 1,300 children each month.
“We have children from every single town, from Sula to Florence,” Solomon said.
Hamilton has the largest enrollment, with Stevensville close behind, but Solomon said participation extends throughout the county. She estimates there are about 2,000 children under age five in Ravalli County.
The program is now partnered locally with the Bitterroot Early Learning Network, and libraries in Hamilton, Stevensville and Darby also help families learn about and register for the program.
For Solomon, however, the value of the program isn’t the number of books arriving in mailboxes.
Reading with young children exposes them to words they may rarely encounter in ordinary conversation, while the stories themselves can give children and parents ways to talk about emotions, differences and difficult days.
“It gives them words,” Solomon said.
She also appreciates that the program is open to every child, regardless of a family’s income. There is no financial qualification to participate, and families aren’t asked to contribute when they enroll.
The universal eligibility also removes any stigma associated with receiving the books. No one knows whether a participating family is struggling financially or has plenty of money.
“Every single child from birth to five, all they have to do is register,” she said.
Keeping those books coming does require local support.
Solomon said the books currently cost close to $3 each, including shipping directly to the child’s home. First Security Bank was an early major sponsor, and A2Z Personnel later held a fundraiser that raised $25,000 for the program. Grants and other community organizations have also helped keep it funded.
First Lady Susan Gianforte later helped expand the Imagination Library statewide through the Treasure State Foundation, which now covers half of the Ravalli County program’s costs. The local program is responsible for raising the remainder.
Despite Parton’s death, Solomon said parents shouldn’t expect the books to stop showing up.
“It’s totally set up,” she said. “There’s not going to be any changes.”
Dolly’s family remains committed to the program, Solomon said, and the organization she created has grown far beyond the small Tennessee community where it began.
For children in the Bitterroot Valley, that means another book will arrive next month, and another after that.
Many of them may be too young to know Dolly’s music or understand why her death prompted thousands of new registrations across the country.
But they will know her books, and if that were the only thing she did, that would be enough.
To learn more or register a child, visit imaginationlibrary.com.
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