LEXINGTON, Ky. (FOX 56) — Over a year after Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library expanded to every county in Kentucky, officials with the Fayette Education Foundation (FEF) said the program to improve literature for children will need to pause while working to find ways to fund the program locally.
Carrie Boling, executive director of the nonprofit foundation, wrote that the temporary pause was the result of rising program costs and limited funding. Officials are getting in touch with nearly 8,000 families who are currently enrolled in the Imagination Library ordering system to make sure they get the information they need about the pause.
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“Imagination Library has been a treasured program for thousands of Fayette County families, and this decision was not made lightly,” said Carrie Boling, Executive Director of the Fayette Education Foundation. “Our commitment to early literacy remains strong, and we are actively exploring funding strategies to restore monthly book deliveries in the future.”
Will children get the Imagination Library books they’d ordered for 2026?
Boling wrote that children currently enrolled in the program would receive their book for January 2026. Once those have been mailed, the pause will take effect.
Organizers in Fayette County wrote that to operate the Imagination Library, the foundation needs to raise $8,000-10,000—half the program’s total cost—each month, with the other half funded by the state Legislature.
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“At current enrollment levels, this equates to $96,000–$120,000 annually in local philanthropic support,” Boling said…