00:00Hello, I'm Helen Hassel. I work for the Dollywood Foundation. I'm a regional director and my job is to encourage programme partners, local organisations to start imagination libraries in their community.
00:11I work for the Dollywood Foundation. We're Dolly's charity and we deliver the programme, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.
00:17This was started by Dolly about 30 years ago in the USA and it was because when she became famous she wanted to give something back to her community.
00:26She grew up in a very poor community and her dad was illiterate and there was no books in the house and she really felt that held him back.
00:34So when she was in a position to do something for a community the natural choice for Dolly was books because it genuinely meant something to her.
00:42And she said that her father said when she set it up that it was a thing from all her achievements that he was most proud of.
00:48So that's why Dolly started the programme.
00:50So the idea of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, it's very simple. We gift books to children.
00:55They get one a month through the post to keep from birth to age five and the books are all age and stage appropriate so each year group gets a different book.
01:03And the reason why this is so important is because it sparks imagination, it encourages speech and language and if you sign up your baby then it really does help with bonding
01:13and really helps that process of establishing really positive routines within the family as well.
01:19And if we look at the outcomes at the end it really does set the children up to succeed at school and that starting school piece is really important.
01:27They're used to books, they're used to reading and they know that it's a really fun thing to do.
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