Every child in Cullman County under the age of five is now eligible to receive a free book every month through the Friends of the Libraries of Cullman County’s new partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

The Cullman County Public Library hosted a celebration Friday morning to kick off the Imagination Library’s arrival to the area and hand out books to the program’s first participants. 

Dolly Parton founded the Imagination Library in 1995 with the goal of addressing high illiteracy and low graduation rates in her home of Sevier County, Tennessee. 

Since then, the program has grown to mail more than 1.8 million high-quality, age-appropriate books each month to children in more than 2,000 communities across the United States and in Australia, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom. 

Bringing the Imagination Library to Cullman County is an exciting adventure for the county’s library system and is meant to let children be exposed to books and reading as early as possible and encourage them to read, said Cullman Library Director Sharon Townson. 

“As a librarian, I truly believe you need to get books in kids’ hands,” she said. 

She said families can sign their child up for the program as soon as they are born, and by receiving their free book every month until they turn 5, parents will have good opportunities to encourage their child to read. 

“They’ll have a whole little library of books by the time they start school, so that’s exciting,” she said. 

Tanya Allcorn, president of the Friends of the Libraries of Cullman County, said bringing Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to the area required the achievement of certain financial goals, and she believes the people of the county will continue to help the program meet those goals in the future. 

“To be able to launch this program here today is to see a dream come to life,” she said. “The community of Cullman has a giving spirit and has always supported programs that help our youth.”

Allcorn also made sure to thank the Cullman Electric Cooperative for being the key sponsor and one of the driving forces behind bringing the program into Cullman County. 

“They have been a great supporter of education in Cullman County,” she said.  

Along with Cullman Electric Co-op, Allcorn also thanked the other local sponsors who have helped the program get off the ground: Cullman County Schools, R.E. Garrison, Peoples Bank of Alabama, Apel Steel and McCaw Hydraulics.

Allcorn said libraries are evolving into something more than a place to visit, and the Cullman Library System will now help provide books directly to families’ doors and help the area’s children develop reading and learning skills before they start school. 

“It’s not enough to be a place that only checks out books to people,” she said. “We have an opportunity to increase reading and literacy in Cullman’s homes every single month.”

Cullman Electric Co-op Communications Manager Brian Lacy said the co-op first learned of the opportunity to bring the Imagination Library to the county through its partnership with Touchstone Energy, and he and Co-op Communications Specialist Oakleigh Calahan reached out to the Friends of the Libraries to bring the program into this area. 

He also thanked CoBank, a national bank that serves cooperative businesses, for matching a $6,000 donation that the co-op made to bring the Imagination Library to Cullman County, as well as the United Way of Cullman County, which had already done some inquiries with local businesses and organizations about supporting the program and helped the co-op get started with its effort. 

The co-op has had a mission of improving the quality of life for the people of the community since it was founded 85 years ago, and while providing electricity is the main way it does that, the co-op has always looked for other ways to help the community, Lacy said. 

“We feel like this program fits very naturally into the co-op’s mission for how we want to serve this community,” he said. 

The cost of the Imagination Library is $25 per child per year, or $2.10 per book, and donations from corporations, community groups and individuals keep the program free for the area’s children. 

To register a child for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, visit ccimaginationlibrary.com/signup

Paper applications are also available at all Cullman County Public Library branches, the Link of Cullman County, Cullman County Health Department and Cullman Electric Cooperative.

Any business or community group that would like to sponsor the program can contact Allcorn at friendsofcullmanlibraries@gmail.com or Oakleigh Calahan at oakleighc@cullmanec.com

Individual sponsorships can also be made by visiting ccimaginationlibrary.com/give