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The Terrebonne Foundation for Academic Excellence has aided schools and teachers throughout the parish since 1991. Since its creation they have awarded more than $900,000 to teachers and schools of Terrebonne Parish with the help of sponsors and donors, and are currently working to create an endowment fund of two million dollars. Aside from supporting the parish schools through grants and funding, the foundation has expanded their reach to include the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, benefiting children scattered throughout the parish.
“We had kindergarten and pre-k teachers telling us that they had children in their classroom that had never held a book before,” said Yolanda Trahan, executive director of TFAE. “We read everything we could read about it and spoke to people involved; no one had anything negative to say, and all of the research was positive. Early childhood development seemed to be something that we, as an education foundation, needed to be a part of. ”
Dolly Parton founded the Imagination Library in 1996, initially to benefit children of her home county in Tennessee. Children who are registered for the program receive a free age-appropriate book once a month from birth until the age of 5, when the child goes off to kindergarten. Since its creation, the program has expanded to counties and countries around the world, giving away over 40 million books.
After lightly considering the idea, it was hearing Parton present at a Rotary convention that really got the ball rolling for TFAE, and the Imagination Library was started one year ago in August of 2012.
“The books have been great,” said Deanne Ratliff, mother of 2-year-old Ford, who is a recipient of the monthly books. “He gets excited when we get a book in mail and we wait until that night to read it.”
Ratliff reads with her son every night. The books they receive from the Imagination Library have continued to meet Ford where he is in his development. His favorite book, “My No, No, No Day” spoke to Ford so much he’s read it at least 25 times. Since the start of the Imagination Library, Ford has learned his ABCs, as well as possessive nouns like mine, yours and ours.
“I hope that’s he’s able to read [by age five],” Ratliff said. “I want him to love books and grow his imagination.”
The Imagination Library is available to any child in any parish or county that has a local “champion.” TFAE serves as Terrebonne Parish’s champion for the program by providing the funding and facilitating the registration.
“We are the ones who oversee and register all of the children,” Trahan said. “We do have community funding partners; it is an expensive program, but it is free to all children among all socioeconomic groups.”
It costs TFAE $25 per year for each child registered. The foundation has high hopes of enrolling 70% of Terrebonne’s children by 2017; an estimated 5,719 total. TFAE projected to register at least 1,600 children in its first year and has since then exceeded the goal with 2,200 registered so far.
“We’re trying to be cautious with bringing the program to the forefront because of funding,” Trahan said. “In the very beginning we went into daycares, nurseries and got support from the library to help spread the word and we hope to be able to continue to do that. We encourage more community funders so that we don’t ever have to say we can’t take anymore children. Anyone can donate.”
TFAE was recently awarded a $10,000 grant from the Bayou Community Foundation, a start-up nonprofit that aims to improve education, health care and awareness of coastal issues in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes. All $10,000 will go to the Imagination Library program, Trahan said.
The Imagination Library is available in 18 different parishes in Louisiana. At its one-year anniversary, Trahan said the foundation plans to seek teacher and parent opinions of the library’s impact and effectiveness.
“We are definitely wanting to research this after hearing and reading so much about early childhood education,” Trahan said. “More and more it’s being said that children are not prepared to enter kindergarten, and what does it go back to? When you have a 5-year-old that has never held a book, do they know counting, numbers or alphabets? It’s having that opportunity to get them off on a good start; those early learning skills help children so much to basically develop the brain, creativity and imagination.”
The Imagination Library program promotes early childhood development and seeks to teach children the basic concepts they need to know in order to be successful in school and life. Trahan explains that not only is the reading beneficial to the child, but to the parent as well.
“Some of the books have guides for what to do with the book, so that the parent or sibling or grandparent can read the book, but also have given questions about what to do on different pages,” Trahan said. “It suggests things like asking the child to pick out colors, if they see flowers or trees and other suggestions than simply reading the book through.”
The program is geared to open the child’s imagination and encourages the entire family to partake in the process of learning. TFAE hopes to continue registering children and aiding in the foundation of early childhood learning.
“It’s teaching,” Trahan said. “It’s making the child more aware, rather than just reading a book, and helping them to learn how to really read a book. The hope is that it’s also going to bring families together, to do more with the child.”
To sign up for the Imagination Library and to learn about the TFAE November event, “Great Conversations,” visit the TFAE website at tfae.org or visit usa.imaginationlibrary.com.
– esther@gumboguide.com
Each month a book is delivered by mail to registrants in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program. Instituted locally one year ago, the program offers free books to children up to their fifth birthday.
