After a year of being present in Austin, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is breaking down barriers to education by providing access to early literacy opportunities.
The West and South Sides of Chicago have ranked in the top 10 for enrollment in the State of Illinois over the past three months, said S. Mayumi “Umi” Grigsby, the executive director for Share Our Spare.
“We’re just growing; that’s a good sign,” she said.
Founded 15 years ago by 10 Chicago moms, Share Our Spare started as a mobilization effort to help families in need of baby supplies.
“The idea was very literally, ‘let’s share our spare to give children under five in the Chicagoland area a strong start in life,’ and doing that by providing essentials,” Grigsby said. Essentials like diapers, clothing, gear and toiletries, she said.
The two organizations began their partnership in April 2025, when the Imagination Library began seeking more program partners throughout Chicago.
“We just saw it as such an easy match,” Grigsby said. Share Our Spare’s mission is to provide children under 5 with essentials, and “essential items for us includes books,” she added.
This specific partnership program deliberately targets South and West Side communities, as they have the most barriers to education, Grigsby said.
“The reason we decided to focus on the South and West Sides is that we identified those areas as having the greatest need in places where there are book deserts,” she told Austin Weekly News in April at a Milton Lil Rel Howery-led story time.
As of May 22, the program serves nearly 7,000 children across 23 zip codes, according to internal program data from Share Our Spare, provided by Grigsby in an email. Two of those zip codes are Austin’s very own.
These two zip codes are among the 10 primary target zip codes Share Our Spare launched in. The other West Side primary zip codes are 60624 (Garfield Park) and 60623 (North Lawndale/Little Village).
“Having books present in the home is an indicator for kindergarten,” Grigsby said. Research shows that 61% of low-income families report having no books at home, she said.
According to NeighborhoodScout/U.S. Census-derived neighborhood analytics provided by Grigsby in an email, 57% of Austin’s population is low-income.
“The fact that we know that the most development happens in those first five years, to us, means that we really are fulfilling our mission of ensuring that the people have access (to books),” Grigsby said.
Emma Bradford is an intern for NEWSWELL CHICAGO through Report for America’s Local News Internship Program.