Representatives from more than 40 area non-profit organizations joined with elected officials at “Spring Forward Together,” a celebration of the county’s commitment to families and children that was held at the Melton Terrace at the Kennett Library on April 24.

Sponsored by the library and Arts Holding Hands and Hearts, Inc. (AHHAH), the event celebrated the continuing impact of the Chester County Dolly Parton Imagination Library. The program, first begun in the City of Coatesville in 2021 and operated by AHHAH,  has since expanded throughout the county and has to date provided more than 8,000 registered children ages from birth through the age of five with the free and monthly delivery of a book. Translated, that number accounts for 28 percent of children that age in the county.

AHHAH Executive Director Jan Michener thanked the many individuals who have helped expand the program to the entire county, including Lori Cushman, the president of the Justamere Foundation, who made a contribution of $260,000 as part of the agency’s five-year commitment to the Imagination Library. Located in Exton, the agency’s mission is to impact generational poverty through grants for career education and supporting programs. The foundation works closely with community partners to find innovative ways to help neighbors through education, coaching, and connections. 

“In nine months, we had 653 children registered and then it was asked, can we do it for all of Chester County?” Michener said. “I said, ‘Lori, could we do it for all of Chester County? Lori, would you guarantee that you will fund it for five years?’ We want to see if [the Imagination Library] has an impact of kindergarten readiness and also on third grade reading scores, because for profit prisons look at third grade reading scores to decide where they are going to put another prison, instead of where they are going to invest in education.

“We want to change that. We want to change it so that every child is reading by third grade, and that money is being put into education and health care and to defund for profit persons and turn them into youth centers and give these young people the help they need.”

Cushman said that reading literacy is critical to the development of a child and pointed to her own upbringing in Arkansas as an example.

“My mother raised five kids on no money, and we didn’t have a whole lot of things, and we especially did not have a lot of books, but we had a few,” she said. “She understood how important it was to have those books in the home. She couldn’t necessarily show us what a better life looked like herself, but she knew that she could through these books.

“Anything that we can do to move that needle forward for these children is so critical and it can be a small trajectory change or it can be something as amazing as giving them their own book every month in the mail.”

In a joint statement, State Sen. Carolyn Commita, State Sen. John Kane and State Rep. Christina Sappey told the audience that they are co-sponsoring a bill being introduced in the State House and State Senate by State Rep. Liz Hanbidge (D-Montgomery County) to expand the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to every county in Pennsylvania. 

Hanbidge’s legislation -- H.B. 2025 -- would add Pennsylvania to the program’s worldwide roster by amending the Public School Code, establishing the Statewide Imagination Library Program and the Imagination Library of Pennsylvania Restricted Account. The cost for the program would amount to about $13 per child. House Bill 2025 currently awaits consideration in the House Education Committee. The companion bill, S.B. 1097, is circulating for additional co-sponsors.

Currently, more than 53,000 Pennsylvania children are enrolled in the Imagination Library across 44 counties. However, there are approximately 700,000 eligible children in the state who are not registered.

Sappey said that the expansion of the program is important “because not every community is like Kennett Square. Not every community has a library like this, nor has as much access to so many resources. It’s imperative that every corner of Pennsylvania and all of our children have access to these wonderful books every month.”

Michener praised the partnerships of the many non-profit agencies in southern Chester County, nearly all of whom patrolled information tables throughout the library. 

“It is why it was so important for us to have this event, because the problems in housing and food inequities and education and health care are so big that one organization cannot do it alone,” she said. “We have to step out of our silos, come together and create a basket of love with a trampoline beneath it, and when a child or a family fall, instead of falling through, we will help them get to a new trajectory in order to not just survive, but thrive.”

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].