Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Honors Childbirth Center Nurses at Knoxville Hospital

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails books to children free of charge from birth until they begin school at age five. If registered at birth, children will receive 60 books before graduating the program. 

Nurses at the Childbirth Center at Parkwest Medical Center, located in Knoxville, Tennessee, will be honored with the Imagination Library’s Seeds of Imagination Literacy Award thanks to their dedication to getting children signed up for the program. Aside from online registrations, the nurses at Parkwest are credited with being Imagination Library’s top registration partners.

“COVID-19 has made nursing jobs more demanding and dangerous, and yet these nurses continue to provide their patients with the upmost care and resources amid these uncertain times,” officials said.

By helping parents register their babies for the program before being discharged, these nurses are ensuring that infants born in their hospitals have access to books from the very beginning. 

“Our nurses have really held on through this trial that we’ve been through, and you know, recently somebody said that this is going to be the greatest generation of health care workers to have ever been and that’s an honor,” said Holly Woodlee, the Nurse Manager at the Childbirth Center at Parkwest. 

In Knoxville alone, there are 20,000 children registered for the book gifting program. “You register the children at birth which is what they’ve done such a great job doing here at Parkwest birthing center, and the goal is to receive all 60 books before they start kindergarten,” explained Bonny Naugher with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Knox County.

“We really really appreciate these nurses making sure that these children are registered for the Imagination Library because there’s a million other things they have to do as well before a new baby’s discharged,” added Naughter.

Image source: WATE