AP Photo Dolly Parton speaks to an audience gathered to celebrate the expansion of the Imagination Library of Kentucky at the Lyric Theatre in Lexington, Ky., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. The library is now available to all 120 counties of Kentucky and provides free books to children up to the age of 5.

The Jefferson Defrees Family Center in Warren is having its annual storybook breakfast this weekend to benefit Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Warren County.

The breakfast is Saturday at 9 a.m. Pre-sale tickets are $12 while tickets purchased Saturday cost $15. Call 814-723-6350 to get tickets or visit the Jefferson Defrees Family Center, 207 Second Ave., Warren.

“Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a literacy initiative for children from birth to 5 years. Registered children receive one book a month mailed to their home – free of charge.” Jennifer Madigan, child care director at the Jefferson Defrees Family Center. “The only requirements for registration are being under 5 years and being a Warren County resident. The free books are mailed to the children monthly. The books are made possible through generous individuals and businesses as well as fundraisers. The Jefferson DeFrees Family Center receives a monthly invoice for the books and mailing. It costs approximately $31 a year to mail 12 books to one child. Present enrollment is around 870 Warren County children.”

Registrations are being accepted for the program at the Jefferson DeFrees Family Center.

This Storybook Breakfast is for anyone with a love of children’s books and the magical moments. While this is targeted more for a younger audience, any age is welcomed to attend. Both children and adults are welcomed and encouraged to dress up if they so choose as it adds to the fun, but it is not required. Typically, between 100 and 120 people attend the breakfast, which is held in the gym at the Jefferson Defrees Family Center.

There will also be a basket giveaway at the event, with baskets set up in the lobby. There will also be character visits, photo opportunities and community information.

Dolly Parton, the 78-year-old country music legend, has made it her mission over the past three decades to improve literacy through her Imagination Library book giveaway program. It has expanded statewide in places like Missouri and Kentucky, two of 21 states where all children under the age of 5 can enroll to have books mailed to their homes monthly.

“In the mountains, a lot of people never had a chance to go to school because they had to work on the farms,” she said at the Folly Theater in Kansas City, Mo., in August, according to the Associated Press. “They had to do whatever it took to keep the rest of the family going.”

Parton, the fourth of 12 children from a poor Appalachian family, said her father was “one of the smartest people I’ve ever known,” but he was embarrassed that he couldn’t read.

And so she decided to help other kids, initially rolling out the program in a single county in her home state of Tennessee in 1995. It spread quickly from there, and today over 3 million books are sent out each month. Since the program started, books have been sent to more than 240 million to kids in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia.

Asked in Kentucky about her lasting legacy, Parton said she’d like to be remembered as “a good ole girl” who worked hard and tried to make people happy and the world a better place.

“Of course I want to be known as a songwriter and a singer, but I honestly can say that the Imagination Library has meant as much, if not more, to me than nearly anything that I’ve ever done,” she said.