services Kylie Smith and Librarian Jane Siermans at a mums and bubs group meeting at the Cobar Youth & Community Centre last Wednesday. ▪ Photo contributed
Cobar Shire Council has teamed up with United Way Australia and the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to hand out free books to new babies in Cobar.
After hearing about the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, council’s general manager Peter Vlatko was keen for Cobar to be involved and asked council’s librarian Jane Siermans to investigate how they could bring the program to Cobar.
Jane explained United Way Australia is a community impact organisation that helps prepare children to read, learn and succeed and delivers the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program in Australia.
“Over two million free books are gifted each month to children around the world, and over 190 million free books have been gifted since the program’s inception in 1995,” Jane said.
The program is funded by the Cobar Shire Library budget.
“This year we have used part of the allocation from State Library of NSW.
“The books are free for the parents.”
Jane said working with local child and family health nurse Tarra Burke, she has been enrolling children born this year into the program.
“Only babies born this year can be registered, but all parents can access copies of the Imagination Library books at Cobar Library.
“The books are available [to borrow] as part of the general collection (to all members).
“Once signed up, children receive a book in the mail once a month for five years.”
United Way Australia has a Cradle to Career education strategy called ReadLearnSucceed (RLS).
One of its aims is to tackle the statistic that one in five children start school without the basics to succeed.
The program endeavors to support children, parents and the community to ensure more children start school with the literacy skills required to learn.
In partnership with Penguin Random House Australia, the program delivers a quality, age-appropriate book once a month direct to children at home from birth to five years old.
The program equips parents with the tools to support early childhood literacy.
“Each book comes with tips on how to get the best reading experience with their child.
“Books in the home are fundamental to early literacy, as is parental reading,” Jane said
