By Ruth Rasmussen
Because Kyle DeGood pursues big dreams, thousands of children in this part of Virginia are experiencing the joy and wonder of books at a very early age.
In 2017, at age 19 and while in college, the Newport News native created The DeGood Foundation, a nonprofit that partners with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to deliver new, age-appropriate books each month to children from birth to age five, at no charge to their families. For almost two years, he worked from his dorm room at Christopher Newport University, raising $12,000 to cover the foundation’s initial costs. In March 2019, the program officially launched, and within a week, 200 children were enrolled.
Today, thanks to broad community support, The DeGood Foundation is one of the largest local program partners of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Virginia. More than 6,000 children in nine localities on the Virginia Peninsula receive books each month, and more than 234,000 books have been delivered since the foundation’s launch.
“The fact that the community really responded to this, both financially and by wanting to sign up their children, has just been amazing,” DeGood says. “Through the years, we have had the most wonderful partners step up to help us expand to different communities.”
Because of his lifelong love of books, DeGood is an ideal spokesman for the program. “I vividly remember my mom reading to my brother and me at night,” he says. “That was always part of our routine.” In elementary school, he was a fixture at the school library, and by second grade, he would often read aloud to his younger schoolmates in their classrooms.
In middle school, after his family moved to Hawaii, DeGood saw firsthand the Imagination Library’s impact as he observed little kids who were enrolled in the program racing to their mailboxes on book delivery days, excited to see what awaited them.
At the time, DeGood was a devoted Dolly Parton fan who was drawn not only to her acting and music, but also to her philosophy that if one works hard enough, dreams will come true. “I was a big dreamer growing up, and that became my guiding light,” he says.
Additionally, as someone obsessed with amusement parks from an early age, DeGood was intrigued by Dollywood, Parton’s legendary theme park in Tennessee, and he vowed he would someday visit.
Using words like “serendipitous” and “divine inspiration,” DeGood says when he moved from Hawaii back to Newport News for college, “all my worlds started connecting at once.” While visiting relatives the summer after his freshman year, he saw how engaged and happy the youngest children were when books were read aloud to them.
“Wouldn’t it be great if all kids loved reading that much?” he thought. On the drive home, Dolly Parton’s song “Try” — the theme song for the Imagination Library — came on the radio. It was the affirmation he needed. Later that night, with what he refers to as “a lot of help from Google,” he worked until 2 a.m., researching nonprofit startups and filing articles of incorporation for his new foundation.
That same week, DeGood made a spur-of-the-moment visit to Dollywood and while there, had a completely unexpected encounter with Parton.
“I’m standing in line and out of nowhere, she and her friends are walking by,” he remembers. Parton caught his eye and in her delightful southern twang said to him, “Well, hi darlin’, aren’t you cute! Thanks so much for coming today.” The “Dolly sighting” was only two days after he filed the initial paperwork for his foundation, and DeGood viewed it as another sign he was meant to follow this dream.
Reflecting on the past nine years, DeGood credits many others, including his board of directors, volunteers and local donors and sponsors for the phenomenal growth of his foundation.
“This doesn’t happen without community. If we don’t receive community support by way of donations or even by spreading the word, the program can’t exist. Ultimately, this program is community built and sustained,” he says.
