Local Children Have Chance to Receive Free Books

ZANESVILLE – Local parents have chance to get their young child on the fast track to early literacy.

Through a collaboration with the Ohio Governor’s Imagination Library, the Muskingum County Literacy Council is able to bring the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to the county.

The Council feels it is a good idea to prepare young children to read before they start Kindergarten.

The Muskingum County Community Foundation is serving as the fiscal agent and helping to raise funds to cover the cost to the families.

“One book comes every month in the mail so the child is just thrilled to open the book, find it in their mailbox and then you hopefully have this engagement with the parent who is the primary teacher and the person who really loves this child and wants to get them to kindergarten ready,” Muskingum County Literacy Council’s Becky Hill said.

Going into July, the Literacy Council will have distributed a little over 4,000 books. It is looking to add more children into the free program.

“We’ll have almost 1,400 kids enrolled over July’s distribution and now we’re over 1,400 which will be August’s distribution so we’re looking to get nearly 5,400 we really want to increase our enrollment,” Hill said.

For information on enrolling your child, you can visit the Ohio Governor’s Imagination Library/ or the Dolly Patron Imagination Library websites.

You can also make donations to the literacy council on the Muskingum County Community Foundation’s website.