The Verde Valley Imagination Library provides free books to children across the Verde Valley and is continuing to seek more enrollment while raising funds.
The organization will be hosting their third Blazin’ for Books fundraiser on Sunday, Feb. 4, from 4 to 7:30 p.m. at Blazin’ M Ranch, which will include a meal, entertainment, a keynote speaker, a book pull and live and silent auctions.
The program provides books for children from birth to age 5 at no cost to the family regardless of income. The books are selected by a panel of educators and follow different themes throughout the course of a child’s development.
The Rotary Club of Sedona brought the Imagination Library to Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek in 2016 before expanding it to the entire Verde Valley. Parents have expressed that they believe their children enjoy reading more because of the program.
The books arrive via mail addressed directly to the child. The inside flaps of many of these books offer guides and ideas to help parents engage their children while reading. More books are becoming available in Spanish as well.
VVIL enrollment peaked around 2,000 children in 2021 and then decreased to about 1,850 children after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic response. It is currently around 1,800.
Janet Sandoval, VVIL’s program director, is continuing to raise awareness of the program and get as many children enrolled as possible.
“We’ve been focusing on our social media platform to raise awareness and we’ve been out at community events,” Sandoval said. “We want to emphasize how important it is to engage with the child at least 15 minutes a day to instill a love of reading.”
According to Read On Arizona, 46% of children passed the English Language Arts statewide assessment for the third grade in 2019, a rate that dropped to 35% in 2021. For 2023, the passing rate is 41%.
“The main focus really is to be part of the puzzle to raise those reading scores at the third-grade marker,” Sandoval said. “Then, how we can be part of the puzzle to help to raise that score by encouraging parents to read to their children? … We’re trying to make sure that the parents are really taking advantage of the program because the books are terrific.”
The program’s funding comes from grant partners, sponsors and donations to ensure that the books are always free to families. If residents are interested in sponsoring one child, the cost for one year is $35.
“We have a lot of community support,” Sandoval said. VVIL also works with local businesses. During the past year, Sandoval has recruited local pediatric medical and dental offices to display information about VVIL enrollment and also hand it out to new patients.
VVIL is looking to do more community events in the spring as well. Sandoval would like to partner with the city of Cottonwood to ensure that every child who graduates from the program gets a city library card. She said she envisions a graduation-ype activity for the kids at Garrison Park, with local librarians involved. The event would celebrate their receiving their final book from VVIL while making sure that they continue to read.
“We want to make sure that we stay in front of people and remind them that reading to your child makes a world of difference in their success in school,” Sandoval said. “The studies are showing that if students have been read to as a child, their success is much greater than if they haven’t been read to as a child … Reading is everything.”
For more information, visit vvilbooks.org.
