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Families traveling through the Akron-Canton Airport have a new opportunity to turn travel time into story time, thanks to a unique partnership between the Akron-Canton Airport and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Stark County, managed by Stark Library. When passing through the airport, young children can now select a free book from the bookcase located in the children’s Step2 PlayPort in the main concourse to accompany their travels.
“Our goal is to always provide an exceptional travel experience for our guests,” states Renato Camacho, president and CEO of Akron-Canton Airport. “Offering books for families with young children enhances our commitment to create a welcoming and enriching environment while reinforcing our role as a community partner.”
This partnership encourages families to use travel time to engage in shared reading with young children and create meaningful learning opportunities. Research shows reading with children strengthens language skills, builds emotional connections and fosters a lifelong love of books.
Many of the books available in the bookcase are from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library’s collection and include several bilingual English and Spanish books. Books can be used in the Step2 PlayPort area of the airport, or they can be taken with the child to read while traveling.
“This partnership aligns with Stark Library’s mission to promote literacy beyond traditional library walls,” said Mary Ellen Icaza, Stark Library executive director. “Books have the power to transport young minds, just as airplanes transport people. By providing books at the Akron-Canton Airport, we help families turn travel time into story time while making the journey more enjoyable and meaningful.”
The bookcase also features information about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Ohio. Inspired by her father’s inability to read and write, Dolly Parton started the Imagination Library for the children within her home county and now has participating communities within the United States and around the world. The program has gifted nearly 130 million books to more than 1,452,000 children since 1995.
In Ohio, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is available to every child between birth and age five at no cost to families. After enrolling, a child is mailed one high-quality, age-appropriate book each month until his or her fifth birthday.
Stark Library serves as the Local Program Partner and manages Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Stark County. Each Local Program Partner across the country builds partnerships throughout its community to increase awareness and enrollment in the program and fundraises to financially cover the cost of the local program. Stark Library and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Ohio each pay for one half of the monthly mailing cost of the program in Stark County.
This partnership with the Akron-Canton Airport represents a groundbreaking approach to supporting early childhood literacy, offering young travelers the unique opportunity to engage in reading while on the go.
Learn more at www.starklibrary.org/dolly-parton-imagination-library.