HOW IT ALL STARTED

Country music legend Dolly Parton created the first Imagination Library in 1995, to address low literacy rates in her home state of Tennessee. Since then, the program has spread throughout Canada, the US, the UK, Ireland and Australia.

The Rendezvous Rotary Club of Whitehorse launched the Yukon Imagination Library in 2007, in partnership with the Yukon Literacy Coalition. Over the past decade this program has provided thousands of books to local families and encourage a love of literacy at an early age.

The Yukon Imagination Library must fundraise to continue providing this program to Yukoners. The Yukon Government will contributes $50,000 each year, and the Yukon Reads Society works to match those funds through donations and sponsorship.

In 2021, we partnered with the Council of Yukon First Nations to bring the Hän book “Shëtsey,” written and coordinated by Georgette McLeod, translated to Hän by Percy Henry, and illustrated by Susan McCallum, to Yukon families. With the support of our partners, sponsors, and volunteers, the program has grown over the past decade. Today more than 1,400 Yukon children receive books each month.