Kids Get Jump Start to Literacy and Success with Six Years of Free Books

PlayFair Toys believes that kids’ dreams come true when they have the essential skills to make them come true – and reading is one of those skills. Yet many children have no way to develop a love for the magic of reading until they reach school age. By that time it is almost too late to help them. PlayFair Toys wants to change that with a new program to put one quality book a year into the hands of each child in Boulder and surrounding communities, without cost or obligation.

Dr. Marilyn Walker, owner of PlayFair, patterned the program after Dolly Parton’s “Imagination Library,” which gives every child in Parton’s home of east Tennessee a book each month until they are five years old. “We don’t have the means to do this monthly, but I wanted to do something with the potential to save someone from a lifetime of illiteracy,” says Walker. “We start by giving them board books from birth through their 3rd birthday, then hardcover books for their 4th, 5th, and 6th birthdays. The books will be gift wrapped to emphasize the specialness of the occasion.”

Every child is eligible for the program. The only requirement is to sign up at PlayFair Toys with the child’s name, address, and date of birth, and then come in during the birthday month to pick up the book. A reminder postcard will be sent each year. There is no particular residency requirement – children from any community may participate.

The costs of adult illiteracy are estimated at $240 billion each year in lost industrial productivity, unrealized tax revenues, welfare, crime, poverty, and related social ills. As much as 23% of the adult American population is functionally illiterate, reading at no more than a 4th grade level. Approximately 10% of the Colorado population lacks basic literacy skills, and even in Boulder County, which Forbes Magazine rated as the nation’s most highly educated community, about 7% of the adult community is not literate. American businesses lose more than $60 billion in productivity each year to employee’s lack of basic skills. Over 60% of incarcerated adults are illiterate.

“It may sound trivial, but if we can make a difference in one child’s life, it will have been worth it,” says Walker. “These are lives we are talking about - the lives and futures of our children. Illiteracy is an avoidable tragedy.”

PlayFair Toys, www.playfairtoys.com, is an educational and specialty toy store in Boulder, Colorado that is dedicated to positive child development and education. PlayFair Toys is located at 2550 Arapahoe Ave in Boulder, 303-444-7502.