Photo by SAMANTHA YARBROUGH

Lea Hoover, executive director of the Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative Member Foundation, (center) presents gift bags to Harney District Hospital Outreach Manager Steve Howe (left) and Chief Nursing Officer Elaine Wulff (right). Parents of babies born at Harney District Hospital will receive these bags, which are filled with books, welcome postcards, and information about the Imagination Library.

by Hayden Robinson
for Burns Times-Herald

For more than four years, Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative (OTEC) and the OTEC Member Foundation have teamed up with the Rippey Family Foundation and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to deliver free books to young children across OTEC’s four-county service territory.
This program invests in youth by donating age-appropriate books each month from birth until age 5 at no cost to parents or guardians. Books are addressed to the children and mailed directly to their homes.

As of October 2022, the program has gifted more than 190 million books. The program does not stop at the borders of the United States. It also reaches more than 100 countries.

OTEC was the first electric cooperative in the nation to start a Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program. Since OTEC became the 18th location in Oregon to use the program, more than 75,000 books have been delivered to children in Eastern Oregon.

OTEC and the OTEC Member Foundation are elevating their presence by partnering with four hospitals in the cooperative’s service territory: Grande Ronde Hospital in La Grande, Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Baker City, Blue Mountain Hospital in John Day, and Harney District Hospital in Burns.

Parents of babies born in these hospitals receive a bag with a book, a welcome postcard, and some information on the Imagination Library.

OTEC’s mission statement is “To safely provide reliable electric and related services that support the economy and way of life of OTEC members based on the Seven Cooperative Principles.” On top of providing reliable and competitively priced power, OTEC lives out its mission by supporting communities in many ways through the OTEC Member Foundation. Youth are one of the Foundation’s priorities.

Dolly started this movement in 1995 in her hometown of Locust Ridge, Tenn. She was inspired to start this program by her father’s inability to read and write.

Dolly said she envisions an educated generation with the freedom and opportunity to pursue the future of their dreams without limits.

“They dream of becoming a doctor, an inventor, or a minister,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer. The seeds of these dreams are often found in books, and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”

Dolly’s dedication to youth is fueled by giving children of every background the right to an education that will lead them into a future full of options.

“We recognize the importance of early childhood literacy and how it can positively impact the communities for years to come,” Lea Hoover, executive director of the OTEC Member Foundation, said. “This partnership is especially important to the foundation, as they consider it to be their first scholarship.”

American Psychological Association research found that when mothers frequently read to their infants, their children learned almost 300 more words by age 2 than their peers whose mothers rarely spoke to them.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library not only supports reading and literacy, but also an opportunity for a child and their guardian to connect. Reading together can be silly, interactive, and bonding. These first interactions with education can heavily influence a child’s confidence and natural abilities to connect and communicate with their peers.

Funding for the Imagination Library comes from OTEC’s scholarship fund and a partnership with the Rippey Family Foundation, which consists of unclaimed capital credits and does not affect OTEC members’ electric rates.

Click here to register for the program online. Anyone without Internet access may register by calling Aletha Bonebrake at 541-519-3255.