LA GRANDE — Since Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative became the 18th location in Oregon to use Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program in 2018, more than 75,000 books have been mailed out to children in Eastern Oregon.

And thanks to a new partnership with the four hospitals in the cooperative’s service territory, OTEC is poised to bring even more free books to children. The hospitals — Grande Ronde Hospital, La Grande; Saint Alphonsus Medical Center, Baker City; Blue Mountain Hospital, John Day; and Harney District Hospital, Burns — and cooperative have teamed up for the “Books for Babies” campaign where each newborn infant receives a bag with a book, a “Welcome baby” postcard, and some information on Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

“We’ve been thinking of ways on how to expand the program to reach even more kids here locally in the four counties that we serve,” Joe Hathaway, the cooperative’s communications manager, said. “So we got our heads together and we decided to start from the beginning and start compiling the ‘Books for Babies’ campaign.”

Founded by Parton in 1995 and expanded to the national level by 2000, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library delivers age-appropriate books to children all over the world, free of charge, up to age 5. Books are mailed directly to the home and are addressed to the child. More than 188 million books have been gifted to children as of 2020.

“We’re really pushing to help spread the word on Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library,” Hathaway said.

OTEC, the first electric cooperative in the nation to start a Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program, hopes the “Books for Babies” campaign prompts more parents to read to their children.

“We hope to continue (the program) as long as those hospitals keep requesting books,” Hathaway said. “There’s some studies that say, including from Harvard, that a baby’s foundation for language skills is developed in the first year of life. In the first few years of life, more than 1 million new neural connections are formed every second. And so we as supporters of the community and early childhood education, we want to get those parents reading to their babies as soon as possible.”

Patrick Flynn, Grande Ronde Hospital Foundation manager, said the hospital believes partnering with another community organization for a common cause such as child literacy to get a head start on reading and education is worthwhile.

“OTEC driving this particular program is fantastic and them reaching out to us to get (books) in the hands of new families is awesome,” he said. “We are looking forward to being a part of it.”