Each Child. Every Community.

Since December of 2017, Smart Start has sent over 8 million books to young children across North Carolina through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (DPIL)! This milestone is a testament to the hard work by our local partnerships across North Carolina.

Smart Start has grown the statewide enrollment in DPIL to 288,876 children since 2017. North Carolina now has the highest state enrollment in the United States! We have seen our percentage of eligible children enrolled skyrocket from 8% in 2017 to 48% in 2021.

We are also seeing a shift in reading practices with the growth of DPIL. On average, parents who participated in DPIL reported an increase in reading to their child daily from 42% before they began receiving books to 69% after at least four months of participating in DPIL. The investment in DPIL was even more important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among participating families, 32% said they could not buy books without DPIL.

DPIL is an early literacy program that mails age-appropriate books on a monthly basis to registered children. The North Carolina General Assembly allocated funding to the North Carolina Partnership for Children to increase access to DPIL in Session Law 2017-57.

Since the initial launch, local Smart Start partnerships have been successful in partnering with a variety of community organizations and public agencies to identify and reach new families that may be eligible for the program. Some of these organizations include hospitals/birth centers, child care centers, school systems, libraries, literacy councils, rotary clubs, and pediatrician’s offices.

You can learn more about DPIL by viewing The Library that Dolly Built, a documentary by The Dollywood Foundation, Dollywood, and Abramorama.