The Crenshaw County Children’s Policy Council (CPC) raised over $1,000 Friday for their participation in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. Volunteers served sweet treats at the inaugural Strawberry Festival, working to continue the literacy program benefitting Crenshaw County children.

“[Reading] helps the development of their little brains and gives them some excitement, and we love to see their little eyes light up whenever they’re reading or when someone’s reading to them,” said CPC chairman and District Judge Jon Folmar. “It’s helpful to the community and that’s why we do it.”

The Dolly Parton Imagination Library was founded by country music singer and songwriter Dolly Parton to gift books free of charge for children in the United States. After 30 years, the program has registered over three million children and given out over 264 million books. 

While the state of Alabama provided a grant for organizations to sponsor this program for their counties, the Children’s Policy Council is raising money to continue the program after initial funding is completed.

Currently, the CPC has 244 children registered for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. However, there are around 700 children in total between birth and five years old in the county. 

“The Imagination Library had an initial grant which funded us,” Folmar said. “Hopefully we can get by on [the grant] for about a year, but after that it’s all up to us. We have to raise every dime for the books.

“If you’ve got 700 and some-odd children between birth and 5-years-old in the county, you’re looking at over $14,000 that we would have to raise annually. So, this is just one thing that we’re doing. We don’t really have a goal [amount], but our goal is to raise as much money as we can and get ahead of the game so we’ll have some money for these books.” 

To help fundraising efforts, the policy council planned the first annual Strawberry Festival, complete with fresh, homemade strawberry shortcakes for participants that donate to the program. 

These shortcakes were made up of pound cake, ice cream and whipped cream donated by the community and strawberries purchased through Crenshaw County Career Academy’s service fundraiser. 

“This [Strawberry Festival] is one of a lot of fundraisers to come,” said Heather Coots, the secretary-treasurer of the CPC and Chief Juvenile Probation Officer for Crenshaw County. “I think the response is going very well, thank you to the Journal and Facebook, and whoever has put this out and shared it, it has just been an amazing turnout so far.”

After the event, the Children’s Policy Council members found they had raised $1,050 to continue to partner with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. 

While the group is raising money for the children currently registered, the Children’s Policy Council urges parents who have not yet signed up to register their children to receive a free book every month. 

“As of [Thursday] we have 244 children signed up for the Dolly Imagination Library, and I did find out there are 700 children under the age of five inside Crenshaw County,” Coots said. “We would love to have all 700 [signed up], so were continually trying to reach the parents and grandparents, whoever we can to get those children signed up, we would love to have all 700.” 

To register for the free program, visit www.imaginationlibrary.com.