{"id":417536,"date":"2026-08-26T19:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T19:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/417536\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T19:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T19:52:10","slug":"east-texas-libraries-nonprofits-ensure-dolly-partons-imagination-library-to-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/417536\/","title":{"rendered":"East Texas libraries, nonprofits ensure Dolly Parton\u2019s Imagination Library to continue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">East Texas (KLTV) &#8211; Following the death of legendary country singer and philanthropist Dolly Parton, East Texas community leaders are pledging to carry on her literacy legacy through her signature Imagination Library program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The program, which provides free monthly books to children from birth to age 5, has distributed tens of thousands of books locally. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">East Texas partners say they received assurances from the Dollywood Foundation that a long-term plan is in place to ensure deliveries continue uninterrupted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In Gregg County, the Greater Longview United Way has distributed more than 90,000 books over the last three and a half years, serving about 2,500 local children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe want to provide those resources to our local families to ensure that kids have every opportunity to have a strong start to school,\u201d said GLUW Executive Director Dr. Evan Dolive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Further south in Angelina County, the T.L.L. Temple Memorial Library in Diboll has enrolled 150 active children since launching nearly two years ago. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Library Director Justin Barkley says local organizers are determined to expand the program countywide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Parton, who often said she was most proud of being known as \u201cThe Book Lady,\u201d launched the initiative in 1995.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KLTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"East Texas (KLTV) &#8211; Following the death of legendary country singer and philanthropist Dolly Parton, East Texas community&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3104,670,11735,2172,631,8846,145289,145473,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-417536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-books","tag-children","tag-country","tag-country-music","tag-death","tag-dolly-parton","tag-imagination-library","tag-jolene","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}