Dolly Parton's Imagination Library is partnering with San Diego-based Dr. Seuss Foundation to launch a countywide program available to every eligible child under age 5, regardless of family income. With more than 170,000 children in that age group, San Diego will become the most populous county in the United States to make the program universally available through a countywide initiative.
The timing gives the announcement particular significance. Parton died August 25 at age 80, bringing an end to an extraordinary career that took a girl raised in poverty in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains to the highest levels of music, film and popular culture. Her family specifically asked that, in lieu of flowers, those wishing to honor her make donations to the Imagination Library.
"Through the Imagination Library, Dolly Parton has made millions of books accessible to young children," Dr. Seuss Foundation CEO Katie Rast said in announcing the San Diego partnership. "We are proud to honor Dolly's legacy by working in partnership with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to ensure every young child in San Diego County can develop a lifelong love of reading."
The program is rooted in Parton's own unlikely journey and, specifically, in the life of her father. Dolly Rebecca Parton was born January 19, 1946, in Sevier County, Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children in a family that lived in a small one-bedroom home in the Smoky Mountains. Her father, Robert Lee Parton, was a hardworking farmer and laborer who never learned to read or write, something his daughter came to believe had prevented an exceptionally intelligent man from realizing some of his own potential. That experience eventually became the inspiration for the Imagination Library.
Parton established the program in 1995 through her Dollywood Foundation, initially intending only to provide books to preschool-age children in her home county in East Tennessee. The concept was remarkably simple: register a child and a carefully selected, age-appropriate book would arrive at the family's home every month at no cost to the parents. The first order consisted of just 1,760 books.
Parton later recalled that her father's reaction to the project affected her profoundly. Before his death, he told her that the Imagination Library was probably the most important thing she had ever done.
"I can't tell you how much that meant to me because I created the Imagination Library as a tribute to my Daddy," Parton wrote in a letter explaining the program's mission. "He was the smartest man I have ever known but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all of his dreams."
What began as a small Tennessee literacy project eventually became an international phenomenon. The Imagination Library has now distributed more than 330 million books and expanded across the United States as well as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Republic of Ireland, with millions of books mailed to children every month.
And unlike many assistance programs, participation is not based on financial need. The philosophy has always been that every young child living in a participating community should be able to build a home library, regardless of household income. Families can also choose a bilingual English-Spanish book option, which the Imagination Library introduced nationally in 2023.
The San Diego expansion also creates an unusually fitting partnership between two of America's most recognizable champions of children's literacy.
Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel was not a San Diego native, but San Diego became his home. Geisel and his first wife, Helen, moved to La Jolla in 1948, and he spent decades there writing and illustrating many of the books that would make him one of the world's most famous children's authors. He died in La Jolla in 1991, and UC San Diego renamed its main library for Ted and Audrey Geisel in 1995.
The Dr. Seuss Foundation itself dates to 1958 and has since contributed more than $300 million to charitable causes, with a particular focus today on early childhood education and literacy. The foundation has deepened that work locally in recent years, including establishing a $15 million endowment with San Diego Foundation in 2025 intended to provide long-term funding for early-literacy programs serving San Diego County children from birth through age 5.
Earlier this year, the Dr. Seuss Foundation and San Diego Foundation awarded another $2 million to 38 organizations supporting early literacy and childhood development around the county. Their collaborative grantmaking efforts have already reached tens of thousands of local children and families.
The new partnership effectively brings together two enormously successful literacy legacies - one born from a Tennessee sharecropper's inability to read and the other from a children's author who spent much of his life overlooking the Pacific from La Jolla.
"Dr. Seuss is to San Diego what Dolly Parton is to Tennessee - an iconic figure whose extraordinary imagination and generosity have inspired generations," former California Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins said in announcing the program.
"This historic partnership brings together the legacies of Ted and Audrey Geisel and Dolly Parton, three visionary philanthropists united by a profound belief in the power of books to transform a child's life," Atkins continued.
Atkins, a longtime San Diego elected official, now serves on the board of the Dollywood Foundation and also played a role in bringing the Imagination Library statewide. She and State Sen. Shannon Grove co-authored Senate Bill 1183, which established California's statewide Imagination Library program and created a state funding mechanism to help local affiliates pay for books.
Under California law, state money can be used to match funds raised by qualified local Imagination Library affiliates, generally on a dollar-for-dollar basis. The statewide program provides participating children with an age-appropriate book mailed to their home each month at no cost to their families.
The Imagination Library began expanding into California in 2023, but San Diego County had remained a conspicuous gap. More than 6,000 local families had already expressed interest in participating before the countywide program was announced.
Parton herself was no stranger to San Diego. Her appearances here stretched across decades. In January 1985, Parton and Kenny Rogers drew approximately 14,000 people to the San Diego Sports Arena during the height of their "Islands in the Stream"-era popularity. The pair returned to the Sports Arena together in April 1990. She performed at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay in 2008 and returned to the arena then known as Valley View Casino Center on September 27, 2016, as part of her Pure & Simple Tour - her first major North American tour in roughly 25 years.
But Parton's charitable legacy ultimately became every bit as consequential as her entertainment career.
Beyond the Imagination Library, she became known for quietly putting substantial portions of her wealth behind causes ranging from education and disaster relief to medical research. Her philanthropy was frequently delivered with considerably less fanfare than her rhinestones-and-platinum-wig public persona, reinforcing the unusual combination that made her one of America's most broadly beloved entertainers.
Her literacy mission, however, was deeply personal and remained one of the clearest threads connecting the poverty of her childhood with the enormous resources she eventually accumulated.
Parton grew up surrounded by music but with few material possessions. She began writing songs as a small child, performed on local radio and television by age 10 and left for Nashville immediately after graduating high school in 1964. She eventually became one of the most successful songwriters and entertainers in American history, writing standards including "Jolene," "Coat of Many Colors" and "I Will Always Love You," starring in films including 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias, and accumulating major honors across music, film and television.
Yet the literacy program inspired by her father became one of the most tangible expressions of what Parton wanted to do with that success. Instead of requiring families to visit a library or demonstrate financial need, the books simply arrive at a child's home month after month, gradually creating a personal library and making reading part of family life. Now that mission will continue in San Diego without her.
Registration for the San Diego County program has not yet opened. Families interested in participating can use the Imagination Library's availability checker and request a notification when enrollment becomes available in their area. Donations can also be directed specifically toward the San Diego County program to help support the local share of its cost.
For a program that began with fewer than 2,000 books in rural Tennessee three decades ago, making more than 170,000 San Diego County children eligible represents another remarkable expansion - and one arriving just days after the death of the woman who started it.
Parton once explained that the dreams children ultimately pursue often begin with the books placed in front of them. Thirty-one years after she created the Imagination Library because her own father never had the opportunity to learn to read, San Diego is about to become home to the program's largest universally eligible county population in America.
For more information, visit imaginationlibrary.com/check-availability.
Originally published on September 4, 2026.
Originally published on September 4, 2026.
