Library receives $3,000 donation
Greater Uniontown Imagination Library Initiative recently received a $3,000 donation from the Private Industry Council of Westmoreland/Fayette Inc. to assist in kicking off its 2009-10 fundraising campaign. Nancy Decker, Imagination Library board president, said, “We are very grateful for the continued support the Private Industry Council provides to Imagination Library. Thanks to this contribution, we are able to provide books to 100 children. This gift also helps initiate our fundraising campaign to other businesses, organizations and individuals to help sustain the program and extend it into additional communities.”
The Imagination Library program was started in 1995 by singer Dolly Parton in Sevier County, Tenn. The program was created to foster a love of reading among preschool children and to insure that every child could have books, regardless of their family’s income. The program features the monthly delivery of a new, age-appropriate hard-cover book to children ages birth to 5 years so that by the time they start school, the child has his or her own personal library. The original program became so successful that it was introduced nationwide in 2000 and made available to any community.
The local initiative began to participate with the Imagination Library in 2007 and Uniontown Public Library coordinates the program in Fayette County. The Community Foundation of Fayette County acts as the conduit for the Imagination Library program and holds and distributes all donated funds. All donations to the Imagination Library program in this community go towards the purchase of books and are tax deductable.
Currently, there are 426 preschool children registered, representing only two of the county’s six school districts – Uniontown Area and Laurel Highlands school districts.
As an additional service, Imagination Library books are read aloud monthly at the library as some parents have limited reading skills but want their children to benefit from the program.
The initiative also announced that it recently graduated its 100th participant. Once enrolled, children receive a book a month until they reach age 5. As children graduate, another child is enrolled in his or her place.
An independent board of directors has been established for the local Imagination Library initiative in order to guide and oversee the work in Fayette County. The board has set the goal to expand the program and to reach more children within Fayette County. A $30 donation provides the books for one child for one year.
Tim Yurcisin, president and chief executive officer of the Private Industry Council of Westmoreland/Fayette Inc., said, “We are proud to be a part of such an important cause that works with young children and families to help promote a love of reading. We also count it a privilege to honor the memory of Chris Decker, who has done so much in our community to promote literacy and whose vision brought Imagination Library to Fayette County.”
For more information, call the Uniontown Public Library at 724-437-1165 or see its Web site at www.uniontownlib.org.