News & Updates

A powerful marker for a child’s future academic success is having access to books at home. Children love bright illustrations, delightful stories, and concentrated attention from a caregiver reading aloud. Books and reading at home exposes them to vocabulary and sentence structure, and it even improves memory—all essential for school readiness and future academic success. 

To improve childhood literacy in our community, United Way of McLean County is the local affiliate for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Children who are registered receive a free book each month, from birth to age five! Our youngest McLean County residents are discovering a love for reading and getting on-track academically.

Local parents Lily and Evan were excited to register their daughter when she was born in 2023. Bryn now has dozens of books that she pulls from the shelf every day. Hollie shares,

“She carries her books around and constantly asks us to read stories. She’s looking at them on her own too. Listening to her jabber as she turns the pages is the sweetest. These books are shaping her into a little reader!”

Bryn is just 1 of more than 4,000 children who have received over 40,000 books so far! Your gifts through UWMC are building home libraries across the county and investing in the young children who will one day be vital members of our community.

Every child in McLean County deserves access to books at home so they can be school ready. With your continued giving, we can reach a total of 5,000 children by the end of 2025.