Dolly Parton's Incredible Legacy Is Still Showing Up in Mailboxes

Dolly Parton’s legacy is still arriving in New Hampshire mailboxes, one free children’s book at a time.

I think like a lot of people, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Dolly Parton is gone.

Dolly died Tuesday at the age of 80 after a career that made her so much bigger than country music.

There's another part of Dolly's story that I don't think I fully appreciated until now.

Dolly's Imagination Library started because of her dad.

She tells the story so well... she grew up poor in the mountains of East Tennessee, one of 12 kids. Her father, Robert Lee Parton, was incredibly hardworking, but he couldn't read or write.

That stayed with her.

Not so long ago in 1995, Dolly started the Imagination Library with a pretty simple idea: get books into the hands of little kids.

It provides children from birth until age five with a new, age-appropriate book mailed directly to their home every month, free to their family. Imagination Library operates across five countries and gifting millions of books each month.

This is the part that really caught my attention.

We've got programs basically in our backyard.

According to the Durham Public Library, it costs the local program just $31 to provide an entire year of books to one child.

There's another program in Farmington, where the Goodwin Library is a local Imagination Library partner. Children under five who live in Farmington can be enrolled at no cost to their families.

The program has also reached other communities around New Hampshire, including the North Country and also serves families across Coös County and parts of Grafton County.

If a child is enrolled at birth, they could receive as many as 60 free books in the mail before their fifth birthday. Sixty books.

All because of something Dolly Parton started more than 30 years ago.

Following the news of Dolly's death Tuesday, WMUR visited the Elkins Public Library, which partners with the Imagination Library.

They reported that 63 children in Canterbury are currently enrolled in the program.

Sixty-three kids in one little New Hampshire town getting books because of Dolly Parton.

That's the part of this story that gets me.

Some little kid probably doesn't understand who Dolly Parton was yet.

They just know there's occasionally a package in the mailbox with their name on it.

And there's a new book inside.

That's a Pretty Incredible Legacy

And all of it traces back to a little girl from Tennessee who grew up with a father who couldn't read.

That may be one of the best ways to remember Dolly.

Families can check whether Dolly Parton's Imagination Library is currently available in their New Hampshire community through the program's official ZIP-code search.