Read to Succeed Buffalo believes that through exposure to high quality, intentional literacy instruction and language-rich environments, from birth through 3rd Grade, all children, regardless of economic or social challenges, can achieve success. We seek to accomplish this by providing evidence based literacy coaching supports in child care and preschool settings and high impact tutoring in elementary settings.

From birth to age three, the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, 85% of the brain develops, producing more than a million neural connections every second and setting the stage for all future learning, health, and behavior. And substantial research shows that reading aloud to children from birth is a key factor in healthy brain development and a building block for cognition, executive functions, and social intelligence. But, according to Zero to Three, only 37% of parents read to their babies every day.

For this, and so many other important reasons RTSB is thrilled to be partnering with Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and Deputy Executive Lisa Chimera to reintroduce Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to 27,000 eligible infants, toddlers and preschoolers throughout the County. 

RTSB, through this program, will be mailing a free, age-appropriate picture book to registered children until their 5th birthday. The books, mailed monthly, are personally addressed to each child. Each age-appropriate book has a note from Dolly Parton encouraging caregivers to read with their child and reading tips that help to foster conversation, vocabulary development, social emotional development and learning in infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

Erie County’s investment in Imagination Library is a game changer but it cannot sustain the program. This is why Governor Kathy Hochul has proposed $7 million in her 2025-2026 state budget, which would make New York an official Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library State and help ensure that RTSB will continue to serve the areas we have identified as having the most children under the age of five in Erie County.

Senator Jeremy Cooney, from the Rochester region, has also introduced legislation investing in Imagination Library and local State Assemblymember Jonathan Rivera has funded the initiative here in Buffalo. The Imagination Library operates in all 50 states and has implemented successful individual programs throughout New York, including Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse where it is county-wide.

RTSB applauds the Governor’s funding proposal and this legislation and urges our western New York delegation to support it as well. Getting high-quality, age-appropriate books into the hands of caregivers is a simple but critically important strategy to close the low-income literacy gap before children enter Kindergarten. RTSB’s goal, in partnership with Erie County and other Imagination Library partners including United Way of Buffalo & Erie County, Town of Akron and Frontier Central Schools, is to respect science of reading by getting every child introduced to language through print at our earliest opportunity! Let’s expand the tent and work together to get 100% of parents and caregivers reading to their infant, toddler or preschooler today!

Anne Ryan is the Executive Director of Read to Succeed Buffalo which works to develop models for improving literacy skills of children in childcare, Head Start and the Buffalo schools.