'Be the one to make a difference.' Dolly Parton celebrates Imagination Library in Missouri

Dolly Parton strolled to the center of the stage at the Folly Theater in Kansas City singing "Going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come."

She exited 40 minutes later — with the crowd on its feet — after singing her song "Try," which she dubbed the theme for Imagination Library.

Part of the song goes: "So try to be the first one up the mountain. And try to be the first to touch the sky. And try to be the one who make a difference."

Parton, a country music icon, started Imagination Library — which provides free books to children each month during the first five years of life — in 1995 to encourage literacy and a love of reading in the impoverished Sevier County, where she grew up.

"It's the most personal thing that I do because it is based on so much depth and love and honesty and truth," she said.

She added: "I am proud to be able to be of help in any charity if I see a need and I can feel it. It makes me feel good to be able to do that because I've been blessed in my own life."

In November, Missouri became the 14th state to make Imagination Library available to every child age 5 and under in every ZIP code — and the first to allocate state funding to help cover the distribution costs.

Parton vowed to visit each state that embraces and adopts her literacy program and she kept that promise Tuesday in Missouri.

Of all Parton's philanthropy work, she said Imagination Library is her most personal. The program is now international, serving children in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, with more than 3.1 million registered and more than 251 million books given away.

"If you can read, you can learn about any subject that you're interested in. And so I just think reading is just so important," she said.

Parton said she loves thinking about children getting a book each month — that is addressed to them — and asking a parent to read it. Eventually, they will be able to read it on their own.

"It makes me happy to know that I'm helping the children. It makes me happy to think that I'm giving them a gift that matters to them and it makes me happy to know I've made them feel special — that somebody, besides their parents ... thinks they're special," she said. "It's just a wonderful program and it's something near to my heart."

The expansion into Missouri was made possible by legislation and $11 million was allocated as part of the state's fiscal year 2024 budget.

Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger, who supported the legislation while serving as a state senator, said more than 140,000 children have signed up for the program in Missouri.

Eslinger said there are 250,000 eligible children, from birth to age 5, that are eligible and need to be signed up. She challenged the audience to make that happen.

"No other state has been fully funded with all children under age 5 eligible on the day the statewide program launched," she said.

The first book a child receives when they start the program is "The Little Engine That Could." The month the child turns age 5, they receive "Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!"

Parton said "The Little Engine That Could" remains one of her favorites because it is about confidence, faith and attitude.

"It was like ... 'I think I can, I think I can,' and sure enough, I'm a little engine that did," she said. "But I thought that would be such an appropriate book to be the first book that we give out."

Gov. Mike Parson said he felt like "a kid in a candy store" getting to meet Parton backstage with First Lady Teresa Parson by his side.

"The Dolly Partons of the world could do anything they wanted to do. They're financially well off ... an icon in the music industry, somebody that has spent their whole lifetime making other people happy with what they do and changing people's lives," Gov. Parson said.

"She could do anything in the world that she wanted to do but she really chose to make a difference in some child's life. And I think that is the true flavor of who somebody is."

He said there have been more than 750,000 books distributed in Missouri under the program.

Gov. Parson proclaimed Aug. 27, 2024, as Imagination Library Day in Missouri and the first lady gave Parton a bound book from Forever Leather in southwest Missouri plus honey from their bee hives.

In turn, Parton presented a signed copy of her "Coat of Many Colors" book, one of two of her books in the Imagination Library program. The other is her "I Am a Rainbow" book, which uses colors to discuss children's feelings.

Toward the end of the event, she stood in front of the audience with just a guitar and sang the "Coat of Many Colors" song released in 1971. It is about a coat made from rags that her mother told her was beautiful and how she was teased at school by the children with store-bought clothes.

Parton highlighted her many connections to Missouri, including her long working relationship with West Plains native Porter Wagoner, which catapulted her career in the late 1960s.

She said Wagoner will be part of a musical for Broadway that she is working on about her life.

She and others also pointed out former Missouri Board of Education member Peter Herschend, co-founder and co-owner of Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation — which includes Silver Dollar City and Dollywood. Parton thanked Peter Herschend and his wife Jan, who were at the event, for their support of Imagination Library.

Parton, who will release a cookbook with her sister in September, said she is also working a book about her life on the road.

She said of all the things she accomplished, her father — who raised 12 children but did not know how to read or write — was most proud of Imagination Library.

"The kids started calling me the book lady and daddy was more proud of that than he was that I was a star," she said. "... My daddy got to live long enough to see the Imagination Library take off and do well and now we're all over the world in different places and we're hoping to be statewide in every state."

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: 'Be the one to make a difference.' Dolly Parton celebrates Imagination Library in Missouri