A statewide Imagination Library program providing free books to young children might not make it into the state budget.
The program, an initiative of Dolly Parton’s Dollywood Foundation, was originally included in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget proposal, but later removed. The program would split costs evenly between the state and the Dollywood Foundation, with a goal of mailing books to children under the age of 5 statewide each month.
New York would not be the first to fund such a program. Twenty states have adopted such measures. This year, Indiana became the first state to pull funding from such a partnership.
“If states like Oklahoma, Louisiana, and West Virginia, places that have much smaller budgets that tend to view government as a less helpful entity than we think we do here in Rochester and throughout New York, if they can afford the program, I just don't understand why we in New York can't,” said Matt Present, a pediatrician who has facilitated the Rochester chapter of the Imagination Library since 2021.
This and other volunteer chapters currently administer in pockets of New York. Present said he’s still hopeful the funding could make it through, if enough people voice their support for the program.
“The hope for us is some old-fashioned, shoe-leather democracy,” Present said. “We've been mobilizing all of our supporters, and, thankfully, there are a lot of them. People who appreciate getting the books, who understand the importance of the program, for themselves and certainly for young families in our community.”
Parton launched the Imagination Library project in 1995. Back then it was focused on increasing access to books in the country singer and philanthropist’s native Sevier County, Tennessee. Since then, the program has handed out nearly 258 million books to children in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland.
State Sen. Jeremy Cooney, D-Rochester, had proposed a bill to create a statewide budget for the Imagination Library in this year’s legislative session. That bill passed through the Senate’s Libraries Committee in February.
Cooney, in a text message, said he remains committed to the initiative.
“As the son of an English teacher, I know that promoting literacy and a love for reading at an early age is the key to improve graduation rates and setting our children up for academic success,” Cooney said. “That’s what Parton’s Imagination Library would do, and why I’ve been a strong supporter of the program in New York.”
This year’s state budget is currently the latest to still be in deliberations since 2010. While Hochul announced last week that a “general agreement” had been met, officials still are making last-minute additions.
The governor’s office, in a statement, declined to comment on the outlook for the program. Final budget bills could be published later this week.
