TISDALE — Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Canada is coming to Tisdale, and with it any Tisdale youth ages five and under can sign up to receive a free book once a month.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Canada describes itself as a “free book gifting organization devoted to inspiring a love of reading in the hearts of children everywhere.”
Each month, enrolled children receive an age appropriate book in the mail once a month, free of charge due to sponsorship.
In Tisdale the sponsorship is both Janke LLP and Lacroix Drug.
“My wife happened across the program,” Shane Janke, partner with Janke LLP. “We have a young child, she’s eight months old, and she was looking for books for her and saw something about this program. So [she] looked into it and saw it wasn’t available in our area, so she mentioned it to me.”
Janke and his wife then began looking into what it takes to bring the program to a community.
“I guess we’re really onboard with the goals of it to improve that early childhood literacy and thought it would be a great program for our community,” he said.
Janke then communicated this to Lacroix Drug, and found they were also interested in sponsoring the program with them.
They intend to launch the program in January 2020.
“It will be started in January, so any kids registered by Dec. 1 will be in it from the start and get a book in January. After that, whenever you register you start the next month.”
Registration can be done online at https://imaginationlibrary.com/ca/find-my-program/, but won’t be available until November.
Janke said they will also have locations with physical forms that can be filled out, but the locations haven’t been finalized.
“We will probably have some here, at our office, and probably have some at Lacroix Drug as well, and then we’re going to try to get forms out to the daycares as well,” he said. “We’ll probably have some available at the library – we’re still in the early stages, so we’re kind of planning for all of that stuff right now.”
He said it’s been confirmed that they will be attending the Tisdale Kinettes Trade Show in November.
“We’re going to be set up right next to Santa, so I figured that would be a good spot to kind of hit a lot of the younger children and start getting some people registered.”
Only residents with a Tisdale postal code can apply to the program under the sponsorship of Janke LLP and Lacroix Drug.
