Xi State - TN - Governor's Books from Birth Program Involvement

In 2006, Xi State first partnered with the Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation (GBBF) in conjunction with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to help provide a free hardback book every month to all Tennessee children from birth to age five.

As individual Xi State chapters, our mission is to insure that the children in our respective areas are enrolled in the program so that they receive the free books, to help raise funds to purchase the books for the children in our area, and to encourage teenagers in our area to become members of the League of Extraordinary Teens. The League of Extraordinary Teens engages Tennesseans age 13-19 in the financial and logistical support of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Membership requires teens to personally register a minimum of ten children and raise a minimum of $140 to cover the cost of including those children in their county’s Imagination Library for one full year.

Xi State has become a very valuable partner in this wonderful program by sponsoring sign-ups and advertising the program via a variety of media formats from word of mouth, to newspaper ads, to radio talk shows every year during the months of September and October (as well as any other time we see a mother with a young baby). It is a win-win situation for the children, the parents, Xi State, and Tennessee, as enrolled preschoolers receive as many as 60 carefully selected, age-appropriate books FREE before they begin kindergarten. The one requirement of parents is to read the books to their children.

Your chapter’s GBBF activities make good submissions to the Xi State News. Perhaps your creative ideas can be used next year by another chapter and theirs by you. Be sure to make photos for your local newspaper and “Create a Buzz” about Delta Kappa Gamma, Xi State, and your local chapter members and those “Extraordinary Teen” volunteers. Remember to keep a count of children enrolled by your chapter for the state report in 2010.

GBBF
Mildred Welch, Alpha Iota President and Claiborne Gayden, Executive Director of the Governor's Foundation for the Books From Birth/Imagination Library Program

GBBF Teens

League of Extraordinary Teens from local high school signing up children for the Imagination Library

GBBF
Family who have signed up their child for Imagination Library with Mildred Welch, Alpha Iota President and Martha Stooksbury, Alpha Iota Literacy Committee Chairman.

Last Updated February 2010

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