St. Matthew's Enid and Dolly Parton's Library
St. Matthew's in Enid recently donated some of their community tithes and partnered with the Enid Public Library to introduce the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to Garfield County. Through this program, every registered child will receive a free book each month from birth to age 5. The initiative has secured funding for two years amounting to $15,000, and the state will also provide a matching contribution.
In 1995, Dolly Parton launched an exciting new effort, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, to benefit the children of her home county in East Tennessee, USA. Dolly's vision was to foster a love of reading among her county's preschool children and their families. The new program gave each child a specially selected book each month. By mailing high quality, age appropriate books directly to their homes, Dolly wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she could ensure that every child would have books, regardless of their family's income.
Since its launch, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library has set and surpassed many goals and milestones. The first book order in 1995 totaled just over 1,700. Today, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library sends more than one million books per month to children around the world, inspiring them to Dream More, Learn More, Care More, and Be More.
Much of St. Matthew's local ministry is focused on supporting the children in the community. They have previously and currently supported various initiatives such as their annual St. Matthew's Baseball Clinic, paying off student breakfast and lunch debts, contributing to the new soccer and tennis complexes at the high school, supporting Leonardo's Children's Museum, the Diaper Bank, Foster Feet, and other similar causes. This was another meaningful opportunity for them to help the children in the community.
Fr. John Toles, Rector of St. Matthew's in Enid, shared why it is important to work with the community. "We believe that it is important for the Church to—first and foremost—proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but we also know that for many, it is what you do and not just what you say. In our doing, we often seek to partner with existing organizations to help them help others. We see this as a part of St. Paul's teaching to "equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ." (Ephesians 4:12)"
