Imagination Library - Adams County

•    Dolly Parton's Imagination Library (DPIL) is a book gifting program that mails books to children from birth to age five. Each month, the Imagination Library mails a high quality, age-appropriate book to all registered children, addressed to them, at no cost to the child’s family. DPIL is supported by local program partner Westminster Rotary Club.

•    How to participate:

Go to ImaginationLibrary.com and enroll your child online.

In 6-8 weeks, your child will receive their first book.

Each month your child will receive a new book until age 5.

When your child turns 5, they will receive their final book and graduate from the program. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Adams County has currently enrolled 9,897 children under the age of 5 living in Adams County. Our area of responsibility was recently expanded from solely restricted to the City of Westminster to include all of Adams County. A total of 18,648 children have been enrolled in the program since we affiliated with DPIL in 2012. We are responsible for enrolling all 38,800 children under the age of 5 living in Adams County.

•    Program Plan:

•     We plan to enroll an additional 10,000 children under the age of 5, who live in Adams County during 2025, raising our enrollment to approximately 20,000 children. Our budget for 2025 is $250,000 with the State of Colorado providing a matching grant of $250,000. There are two facets to the program, both need to be addressed to succeed. First, we must find the money necessary to pay for the books. The annual cost for each child is $25. We pay one half of the cost, and the State of Colorado provides a matching grant for the other half. Your donation doubles because of Colorado’s matching grant. Second, we must find the children. We have been successful in both areas. We are the largest affiliate in Colorado and the second largest in the 13-state southwest region of the country. We are ranked 52nd out of 2,405 affiliates nationwide.

•    Program Approach:

•    On the funding side, we seek out partners who will benefit from this early age education program, we are requesting funding from every city council in Adams County. We also are requesting funding from all the School Districts in Adams County, Hyland Hills Foundation and The Temple Buell Foundation which has been a partner for 10 years. We have a team of grant writers who are scouting other possibilities like local professional sports organizations, corporate supporters and foundations such as the Gates Foundation.

With regards to finding the children, these children are enrolled through six (6) of the areas most distressed schools as well as children enrolled through community-based programs such as Precious Child, Growing Home, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates - Broomfield and Adams County). Further enrollment comes through the preschool reading programs at College Hill and Irving Street Libraries and reading session children attending all 8 of the AnyThink Library reading programs in Adams County libraries. Participants are enrolled with the help of the library staff. Most of the Adams County Schools are on board with the project in spirit and financially. We are currently enrolling children attending the 291 daycare facilities throughout Adams County, over 100 have already been contacted and are enrolling their children. We will finish contacting the remaining daycare centers by spring of 2025. We look forward to informing all the pediatricians and ObGyn providers about the program and asking for their help enrolling their patients.

We continue to work with Early Childhood Partnership of Adams County (ECPAC) and Child Find, Adams 12 schools and Adams 12 Pre-K, Hope House, and Adams 14 pre-K children. ECPAC and Child Find both supply support to young families in crisis, supplying financial and emotional training for the families to better cope. The affiliation with ECPAC, Hope House, Adams 14 pre-K, Adams 12 Pre-K and Child Find has opened the door to substantially more children for enrollment. We have recently mailed out 17,000 postcards to families in Adams County with children under 5. This postcard offers the ability to self-enroll. We are currently enrolling new children at the rate of 200 per week.

We attend local community events and offer families tools (business cards/postcards) which allow the families the opportunity to self-enroll. We remind them that the cards can be used unlimited times and ask them to help enroll their family, friends and neighbors. We will be attending the Adams County fair and any other local events which focus on community engagement. Hyland Hills Foundation is considering assisting enrollment at all their facilities, providing to thousands of area citizens self-enrollment literature.