A Holiday Spotlight on Literacy as Indiana’s First Lady Honors Dolly Parton With Statehouse Christmas Trees. ML
The Indiana Statehouse is paying tribute to Dolly Parton as it celebrates the holidays this year.
Indiana’s first lady Maureen Braun helped decorate Christmas trees at the Statehouse Wednesday, Dec. 10, featuring hand-painted ornaments honoring the state’s Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program. Each of Indiana’s 92 counties received an unbreakable ornament with a request from Braun to decorate it to reflect the ready program and the county.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library started in her home county in Tennessee in 1995 and has spread across the U.S., as well as globally. The program mails children age-appropriate books each month, from birth to age 5. More than 1 million books are delivered worldwide each month, according to the program’s website.
The ornaments decorate three Christmas trees in the Statehouse atrium. Friends of the first lady also made book ornaments by hand to hang on the trees.
“Every ornament on these trees represents a community that believes in the power of reading and the potential of every child. The Dolly Parton Imagination Library is sparking wonder in young Hoosiers and uniting counties across Indiana. This display is an invitation for more Hoosiers to join us in helping give every child the gift of reading,” Braun said.
Braun also used fabric from her home to sew the tree skirt, symbolizing “The Coat of Many Colors,” which honors the story behind Parton’s childhood coat.
The governor’s office said in a release that the ornaments were shipped back from the counties at no cost to taxpayers, through a partnership with UPS and the Indiana Motor Truck Association.
