Rotary Club of Lakewood announcement.
The Rotary Club of Lakewood raised $28,700 dollars during its First Annual Wine and Beer Festival to bring the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program to Lakewood. Those funds were more than matched by the Lakewood City Council on May 1, 2023, when the Council allocated $77,426 from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) which provided $350 billion to state and local governments for Covid 19 relief and community improvements.
“Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to age five, through funding shared by Dolly Parton and local community partners in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Republic of Ireland.”
The Imagination Library program provides age-appropriate, high-quality books each month to children aged birth to five enrolled in the program regardless of social economic status. Children living in any of the Lakewood zip codes can be enrolled at https://imaginationlibrary.com/.
Rotary Club of Lakewood will continue fundraising efforts already underway, throughout all program years, anticipating completely covering the annual cost of the program once ARPA funds are exhausted. The $77,426 allocated to the Rotary Club of Lakewood for the Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library will be dispersed over the next five years. Another major funding source is a 50% match of state funds from the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Program costs will increase over the course of the next five years as children are enrolled in the program with a goal of providing books for 4,000 Lakewood children each year. Lakewood Rotary will work with community organizations and providers of childhood services to provide notice to families with children birth to five years old in 98498, 98433 and 98499 zip codes to enroll in the program.
“Imagine” if they hadn’t closed the library