Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN — The United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley wants to put a book in every child’s hand, birth to age 5, at no cost.

Imagination Library is a United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley initiative, in partnership with the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.

Through the Imagination Library, kids will receive a free age-appropriate book mailed directly to their home. All families in Mahoning County with children birth to age 5 are eligible to enroll.

For enrollment details in Mahoning County, visit this website: www.

ymvunitedway.org/imagination-library

Ohio First Lady Fran DeWine and Gov. Mike DeWine have made early childhood literacy a primary education initiative in the state, to help improve the lives of Ohio’s children and help them succeed in school.

The Ohio Governor’s Imagination Library has partnered with county-based Dolly Parton Imagination Library chapters statewide to strengthen the popular program that mails free books monthly to families with children.

The United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley brought the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program to Mahoning County in 2014. Today almost half of eligible children and their families in Mahoning County participate, making it among the strongest Dolly Parton Imagination Library chapters in the state.

The state goal is by 2021, every age-eligible child in Ohio will have access to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library regardless of where they live.

The Dolly Parton Imagination Library was founded in 1995 by the famous entertainer to deliver books to children in her home county in Tennessee. Today, the program delivers more than 1 million books monthly to children across the United States.

Studies reveal that children of participating families score higher on kindergarten literacy assessments than non-participants with the trend continuing into the third grade.

The Imagination Library initiative is sponsored here by the Ohio Children’s Foundation, the James and Coralie Centofanti Charitable Foundation, William M. Neckerman Jr. Foundation, Jane F. Lamb Charitable Foundation — in partnership with the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.