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Dolly Parton may be best known for her music, movies and larger-than-life personality, but at D.C. Public Library, she has another title.

“She’s sort of like a patron saint of early childhood literacy for us at D.C. Public Library,” Executive Director Richard Reyes-Gavilan said.

Ten years ago, the District joined forces with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library for its Books from Birth program, which sends a free book every month to children from birth to age five.

More than 100,000 D.C. kids have participated since the partnership began, and Reyes-Gavilan said about 30,000 children are regularly enrolled.

“That’s almost four out of every five eligible children in the District,” Reyes-Gavilan said, “that is getting a book a month delivered to their home.”

By the end of August, 3.8 million books will have been delivered to D.C. children since the program started in February 2016.

While the books are free to families, the District does help pay for the program. Reyes-Gavilan said discounted book prices keep the cost to about $25 per child each year.

Reyes-Gavilan said he regularly hears from parents about what it means to have those books arriving in the mail.

“District parents tell me how thankful they are that as soon as their child was born, they were getting books in the mail,” Reyes-Gavilan said. “More than just the literacy aspects, just to have something tactile that parents could bond with their infants over.”

Parton started the program in Tennessee in 1995, as a tribute to her father Robert Lee Parton.

“He was the smartest man I’ve ever known, but I knew in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from seeing all his dreams come true,” Parton said in a video about the program. “Before he passed away, my daddy told me that the Imagination Library probably was the most important thing I’d ever done.”

It is a story Reyes-Gavilan can relate to.

“As someone who also comes from pretty deep poverty,” he said. “We didn’t have books in my home when I was a kid. My parents were immigrants and the public library just wasn’t part of their culture.”

Years later, he not only became the head of D.C.’s public library system, he also got the chance to meet Parton.

“I told her how nervous I was meeting her, and she said, ‘You got nothing to worry about,’” Reyes-Gavilan recalled. “She gave me a big hug. It was heaven for 20 seconds or however long it was.”

Reyes-Gavilan said Parton’s impact in the District goes beyond teaching children to read. The books can be the beginning of something much bigger.

“We’re so indebted to Dolly for creating this program, for the behavior that she modeled, the kindness, the empathy,” Reyes-Gavilan said. “She’s a monumental figure, an icon, Mount Rushmore — you name it. She’s everything.”

The Imagination Library has said Parton’s mission will continue, with free books continuing to make their way to children.

Parton described that mission in simple terms:

“I share this dream that all children should grow up in a home full of books.”

It’s a dream that has put more than 300 million free books into the hands of children around the world.

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