Holiday campaign aims to get more books to P.E.I. kids

Following a shockingly successful campaign to register P.E.I. children for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, the P.E.I. Literacy Alliance is trying to raise more money so it can support more kids.

The alliance had its initial launch of the Imagination Library last month.

"We thought it would take a year to encourage people to sign up, but apparently it only took 12 hours," said executive director Jinny Greaves.

The program was quickly oversubscribed and the alliance had to shut down registrations. It had funding to support 2,000 children, but the number registered quickly jumped to 3,000.

The provincial government stepped in with extra funding to support the 1,000 children on the waiting list.

The Imagination Library partners with publishers and postal services to allow one book a month to be delivered to a child's doorstep for just $50 a year. It is aimed at children from birth to age five, with the goal of providing children with a library of their own by the time they start school.

The new campaign, Inspire a Love of Reading this Holiday Season, has set a target to raise $150,000 by the end of December, which will be enough to sign up another 1,000 children for three years.

Reaching the vulnerable

Greaves said the alliance is looking to be more selective with this round of registrations.

"We really want to reach the vulnerable families," she said.

"That was our goal all along, was to kind of start there. We were quite overwhelmed and surprised by how quickly when we opened up that registration it just filled up."

The alliance is hoping to reach a lot of those families through a partnership with food banks.

As part of a separate program, the alliance is putting children's books in Christmas hampers. Those books will have a bookmark with instructions for registering for the Imagination Library.

There are about 7,000 children under the age of five on P.E.I., and Greaves said the ultimate goal of the alliance is to register every one.

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