NEWPORT NEWS — The love of reading took new heights on Saturday, Aug. 31, when 30 literacy champions rappelled 150 feet down the side of the 11-story Marriott City Center in Newport News.
The “Over the Edge” experience was awarded to participants who raised $1000 or more to support The DeGood Foundation and its book-gifting program through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
The Imagination Library provides free, monthly age-appropriate books to any registered child from birth to age 5.
“It is always and will forever always be free to the children of families that participate. We don’t care who they are, where they come from, how much money is in their bank account as long as they are zero to 5 and live in a coverage area — you get free books and we love you. It’s as simple as that,” said Kyle DeGood, Founder and Executive Director.
The program, already available to most of the Peninsula, will be expanding into Williamsburg-James City County (WJCC) soon.
“We are so excited (to bring The Imagination Library) to Williamsburg-James City County. We hope this region will be our capstone for the local Imagination Library. Once we get into that region we will be done expanding into new areas,” explained DeGood. “Once we get established in WJCC, we can double down our focus on increasing our concentration of more children. We want to make sure at least 65% of kids aged 0 to 5, in each of the counties we serve, are getting books. We would call that a great success.”
Pre-registration for WJCC is open online or by mailing the registration form to The DeGood Foundation.
“This was my second year going Over the Edge for The DeGood Foundation,” said Elisa Campana, Marketing and Events Director for Local Daily Media, the parent company of WYDaily, 92.3FM The Tide Radio, Cannon Country 107.9FM and 30 Off Local, “After learning about the foundation and their goals of expanding their reach here locally I got super excited and wanted to get involved.”
“It will take the community’s support to get the program launched and to keep it around for a long time. It is very expensive to operate. We are always on the hunt for individuals, businesses and local organizations who want to help fund the program for the region. The more support we have from the community to make this successful, the more kids can enroll and get immediate access to the books,” DeGood said.
Run completely on volunteers and fundraising efforts, last year alone, the nonprofit organization had enrollment requests for approximately 400 kids a month with over 5,000 regional children receiving monthly books.
Participant Tes La Dieu, Population Health Manager and Public Information Officer for Hampton & Peninsula Health Districts stated, “I signed up for the Over the Edge event because I wanted to support the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. I think it is important to support kids and their access to books. I developed my own love of reading early on from my family, particularly my late grandfather, and I want every child to get the same opportunity. I am fortunate to have a supportive network of family, friends, and coworkers who donated to support this cause and come out to see me rappel. It certainly helped that those who donated could vote on the costume I wore, so I rappelled down as Cowgirl Barbie and took in the views from 11 stories up!”
Visit The DeGood Foundation on its webpage or Facebook to learn more.
