‘A heartbreaking loss’: Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library loses funding in WA

Washington’s operating budget did not include funding for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, potentially stopping the delivery of monthly books to over 121,000 children, according to a news release from Imagination Library on Tuesday.

“This is a heartbreaking loss to our team, our 46 local Imagination Library partners, and, most importantly, the 121,000 children across Washington, who receive the gift of a free book each month,” Brooke Fisher-Clark, Executive Director of Imagination Library of Washington, stated via a news release.

The program, which initially started as a local project in Parton’s Tennessee home county in 1995, is now a nationwide gifting program aimed at sending free books to children from birth up to age five, regardless of income.

Future of Imagination Library ‘in jeopardy’

The library expanded to Washington in 2022, making it the first West Coast state to do so. According to the organization, Imagination Library has relied on a public-private partnership model, with half of its funding coming from the state and the other half coming from local partners.

But with the legislative session coming to a close, the state operating budget for 2025-2027 was released and will not include any funding for the library. In a letter to the public, Fisher-Clark wrote that without funding, the future of the program is now “in jeopardy.”

The lack of funding came as a shock to the organization, following explicit support from the state in previous years. In 2022, House Bill 2068 passed, creating a 50/50 partnership between the organization and the state government.

In 2023, Parton personally showed her support for the state program by visiting Tacoma and attending a fireside chat on the success of the program in Washington.

According to the Imagination Library of Washington, more than 118,000 children in the state are currently getting monthly books from the program. All children eligible can register and receive books for free, but the annual cost is $26 per child to deliver books monthly. Without the funding in 2025, Clark said they must receive at least $2 million in order to continue operating the program.

The Imagination Library of Washington is now turning to the public for support, asking for donations.