Entertainment legend and philanthropist Dolly Parton announced a partnership last month with Georgia’s Rotary Clubs to continue in the fight to encourage childhood literacy.

Through the joint leadership of Georgia’s three Rotary District Governors, all Rotary clubs in the state will be encouraged to participate and raise funds for the Ferst Foundation, which with the help of local organizations, provides age appropriate books to children from birth to 5 years old.

“We have dreamed of this day since we mailed our first book to children in Morgan County in 1999,” said Ferst Foundation Founder Robin Ferst.

Rotary clubs will help Ferst expand the foundation’s presence in Georgia from 64 counties, which represent 42,000 books a month, to all 159 counties.

Since its inception in January 2007, the local program, now known as Wee Books Program, has delivered more than 9,948 books to more than 500 Dawson County children at no cost to the child’s family.

Local organizations like Rotary, Reading Education Association of Dawson County and the Dawson County Woman’s Club, in addition to individual and corporate donors, make the initiative possible.

“This is a program that our citizens, our civic clubs and our businesses have been generously supporting,” said Marge Carey, president of Wee Books Program.

A retired schoolteacher, Carey said Wee Books Program’s goal is to “get books into the hands of preschoolers, to instill a love of books and reading, and to prepare him or her for school.”

For more information about the program or how to sign up, contact Carey at (706) 216-4872.

E-mail Michele Hester at michele@dawsonnews.com.