- April 19, 2024
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Abra Seay stood in front of the crowd Tuesday night at the fourth birthday party for the Flagler Dolly Parton Imagination Library with a book in hand. The book was not plucked from one of the tables, but instead was one she brought from home: one that was delivered to her grandson through the Imagination Library.
She did not read the book aloud, although the teacher in her wanted to; instead she told the story of a young girl growing up on dirt roads on the very southern edge of Flagler County.
“I grew up with very little means to a single mom — I guess you could call it poor — but she knew though that a book was important, so she instilled in all four of us the power of reading, the power of a book,” Seay said. “So learning became very easy for me because she read to us since infancy. We did the same thing. We instilled the power of learning to our children by simply reading to them.”
When you open a book, you start a conversation. The conversation John Birney, head cheerleader of the Flagler Imagination Library, wants to have is about investing in the county’s 0- to 5-year-olds.
“Nobody really invests in this area, everybody knows how beneficial it is, but there are no lobby groups for 0- to 5-year-olds,” Birney said. “Parents who have 0- to 5-year-olds get blamed and treated with disdain sometimes, instead of being helped in any way they can with our most important community members.”
The Flagler County Imagination Library was started in 2010 by Leadership Flagler Class 18 and provides age-appropriate books to children 0-5 years old at no cost to parents. Going into its fourth year, the program has now distributed more than 7,000 books and has enrollment in the low 800s. But Birney said that the program, while hitting great milestones, still has a long way to go. The goal is to reach every family in Flagler County with children younger than 5 years old.
“It’s about investing in the future,” Birney said. “If we really know brain development, that window 0-5 is when we have to really fertilize the brain.”
Moving forward, Birney hopes to gain more champions of the program not only through informing people of the program, but also financial support.
“It is a free service to our community, but maybe you should support it with your dollars,” he said. “We pay $30 a month for a child in Africa so they can have food and clothing and all that — and that’s great —but here, you can do less than $3 a month for a child in Flagler County, where you live, to invest in that future work force or that future non-violent person. Wow. Why not invest here, where nobody does?”
One strong supporter of the program is the United Way Women’s Initiative of Flagler County, who has donated $1,000 to the program for the past four years. At the Sept. 30 birthday celebration, the group made another $1,000 donation, which will provide books for 33 children for a year.
As a classroom teacher, when she did home visits, Seay found a correlation between the students who struggle in class and the amount of books in their home. In her new position as coordinator of early childhood education for Flagler Schools, one of her goals is to have every early learning child in Flagler Schools enrolled in the Imagination Library.
“Reading to children at a very young age starts to build the bridges and build the synapsis of the brain that go on for pre-literacy skills,” she said. “Reading to your children can do amazing things, and that is the power of a book.”
How can you help?
Less than $3 a month ($30 a year) will provide a child with books for a year. A donation of $50 a month or $600 a year will provide an entire future classroom with new books every month for a year. Under $100 per week ($5,000 per year) will provide almost 10,000 total books over a five year period from the time children enter the program to the day they graduate, the equivalent of a whole school’s future kindergarten classes.
To donate, visit flaglerimaginationlibrary.org or send a check designated for the Imagination Library to Flagler County Education Foundation, 1769 E. Moody Blvd., Building 2, Bunnell, Florida 32110.
