As Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library continues to expand in Illinois, the Effingham Imagination Library has emerged as the first local affiliate of the program to be established in Effingham County.
Like all affiliates of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, the Effingham Imagination Library will provide books for all children registered with the library at no cost, which the local co-directors, Megan Tylka and Julie Flack, believe will promote early childhood education in the area.
In addition to volunteering as the organizers of the Effingham Imagination Library, Tylka works as a physical education and health teacher at Effingham High School and Julie Flack is the librarian for Unit 40.
Although they are primarily responsible for operating the Effingham Imagination Library, Flack and Tylka said they have also been meeting with the library’s board, which includes members from the Effingham Public Library, a community member and a Unit 40 administrator.
Tylka said she was first formally introduced to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library while living in her hometown of Paris, Illinois.
“My grandma and a group of her friends actually helped start it there, so I kind of grew up with Imagination Library,” Tylka said.
The idea to establish the Effingham Imagination library stemmed from a conversation Tylka and Flack had on an hour and a half long bus ride during a field trip. Almost immediately after this conversation, Flack opened up her laptop and the two got to work.
Over the summer, they filled out all the paperwork required to establish a locally affiliated library.
It was also during this time that they partnered with the Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation, making the 501©(3) organization the library’s “local champion,” according to Tylka.
“Since then, we’ve been slowly rolling it out,” Tylka said.
Tylka and Flack originally planned to officially kickoff the program in January or February, but this process was expedited by a press release regarding the expansion of the program throughout Illinois, which was sent out by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker on Dec. 5.
“We opened our database quietly before Thanksgiving, and we were going to ride out the rest of the year with that,” Flack said. “We opened the database quietly to ensure that we had parameters set up correctly and all operations in place to register children. We were planning on announcing it to the community at the start of 2024.”
Despite the unexpected announcement, Flack and Tylka said they still plan on potentially holding some type of official kickoff event sometime in the next couple of months.
Currently, any child in the district, from birth to five-years-old, can be registered to receive books from the Effingham imagination Library on a monthly basis. About 400 children have already been registered, which accounts for about 25% of the approximately 1,500 eligible children in the district.
Flack noted that children don’t have to be enrolled in a Unit 40 preschool program or daycare facility to be eligible, and she and Tylka hope to extend the program to surrounding communities, something that other affiliated libraries have done in the past.
“We are currently working on securing the funding for our Unit 40 boundary right now, but once we have that, we would be open to expanding county wide,” Flack said.
Flack explained that Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library covers much of the administrative cost of operating affiliated libraries, which includes managing the library’s database and selecting which books are sent to registered children.
However, while the state of Illinois is covering 50% of the cost for registered children, the local Effingham Imagination Library chapter will still be responsible for the remaining cost.
The local chapter is seeking funds from local donors, corporate sponsors, and grants to ensure that every eligible child in the district is able to receive a monthly book gift.
“The state of Illinois is going to cover half of the cost, but the local community is still responsible for funding the other half of that remaining cost,” Flack said. “With the boundaries that we have set, we aim to serve 1,500 children, and the total annual cost of that is approximately $20,000.”
The Effingham Imagination Library receives monthly invoices for each registered child, and it costs about $1.10 per child per month
The annual cost per registered child is about $13.
Tylka and Flack are still seeking donations for the local library, but they’ve already been awarded a grant from the Siemer Milling Endowment for Youth Leadership Development.
Additionally, they have already received a donation from the Effingham Educational Foundation.
Flack highlighted the fact that rather than sending families digital copies of books for their children, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provides children with solid copies through the mail they can directly interact with and compile into a collection over time.
In fact, according to Flack, if a child is registered with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library from the time they are born to the time they are five-years-old, they would end up with a total of 60 books.
“So from the time they register to the time they turn five they get an actual book in the mail every month,” Flack said. “That’s kind of the excitement of it for kids.”
Flack also said that the books include tips for parents that encourage more engagement between them and their child during the reading and learning process.
The books the library offers are carefully selected to ensure that each book is age appropriate for every child, and some of these books are bilingual as well.
“In the very early stage, children are receiving books that include rhyme and rhythm,” Flack said. “Then books begin to focus on colors, letters, and numbers, and then end with books about more complex themes like heroes and appreciation,” Flack said.
According to Flack, exposing children to literature and reading at an early age better prepares them for kindergarten by helping them build vocabulary skills, become more emotionally mature and develop critical thinking skills.
“The main goal of her program, if you look at it long term, is that the exposure to books and literature prepares them for kindergarten which in turn prepares them for success in their entire life,” Flack said.
Additionally, Tylka believes that the early exposure to books “plays a key role” in allowing a child’s imagination to flourish, and she noted that Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library encourages families to experience literature together, something she has seen with her son and her two daughters.
“Reading books then triggers imagination, imaginative play, and a lot of these kids probably have older siblings that could also read them the books,” Tylka said. “Whenever I see my son, who’s in first grade, reading an Imagination Library book, or any book, to his little sister who’s four or one, that also just brings a proud parent moment for sure.”
After a summer of working tirelessly to get the Effingham imagination Library established, Tylka and Flack are excited to finally be able to get books in the hands of hundreds of young children in the district, some of whom, as Flack noted, might not otherwise have access to them. But they also stressed how essential local funding will be to achieving this goal.
“We need community partnership for this program’s longevity,” Tylka said. “We would love all 1,500 kids to register.”
Anyone looking to register their child with the Effingham Imagination Library can go to imaginationlibrary.com and click the “check availability” tab on the upper right side of the page.
After finding the library by searching for the correct zip code, the website will help guide parents through the registration process for their child.
Those who would like to donate to the Effingham Imagination Library can do so through the Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation by using a link which can be found on the Effingham Imagination Library Facebook page.
Donors can also contact the library via email at effingham.imaginationlibrary@gmail.com.