Imagination Library: White Horse Plains
- Dr. Kristen Mitteness
- Aug 12
- 3 min read
During my pregnancies and postpartum I find myself bursting with creative business ideas. It doesn't make sense to act on many of them because I know my time and energy will be limited with a newborn in tow. I was telling this to a friend who had a similar feeling during her pregnancies and suggested I just keep writing them down. Which I did. One of the ones I wrote down in 2023 was Imagination Library. I was looking into it after my daughter was born. My sister had told me about it and had done it with her two girls in Minnesota. At the time, it did exist in Canada, but was very limited and not in our area.
Fast forward to my second postpartum in 2026. I was itching to work on a project shortly after my daughter was born. I was scrolling through my list of business ideas and I saw Imagination Library again. I looked into it. It had expanded a lot! It was available in many rural areas in Manitoba, largely funded by local school districts, but not in our area. I looked into the actual logistics of the program and reached out to them to get more information. It seemed very doable. Lucky for me, my work wife and co owner of White Horse Family Wellness, Dr. Caitlin Reimer, loves reading as much as I do. I presented it to her, with a back up plan of putting it together personally, if she didn't want to use the clinic as hub for it. As you now know, she was all in. I was ecstatic.
Here are the basics of the program: it's a FREE literacy program is for children from birth to age 5 who currently live in the RMs of Headingley, Macdonald, St. Francois Xavier, Rosser and Cartier. Once registered, children receive an age-appropriate, high-quality book delivered directly to their home every month at no cost to their family, until their fifth birthday. So fun!
Reasons I'm obsessed with Imagination Library:
While I've always loved the idea of finding a program to regularly donate to, I never have. I don't regularly go to church and have rarely felt compelled to give an offering when I do. I've often given one time donations to many organizations who I loved, but have never set up a recurring donation, although I've wanted to. I've wanted to find something I love so much that I want to give them my money to keep it going. Imaganation Library is that for me.
The fact that my clinic can act as a registration hub is a huge bonus. In addition, the books that get sent out have our logo and return address on them. This amazing program seconds as marketing for the clinic.
Kids get mail! How fun is it for your child to get something in the mail? In fact, they get a book every month until their 5th birthday.
It's affordable. Due to the scale of the program, books are published inexpensively. The program costs $47 per child per year. Wow!
It's scalable. We chose 100 kids. It was a number that we could afford as a clinic if we got zero donations. Thankfully we have already received some! Getting funding has also been the hardest part so far. I would love to get enough funding to open the program up to more kids.
The program gives you a ton of marketing material to start with and use to promote it. They also offer training for their online systems. They make it as easy as they can for anyone to get it started.
We are officially launching the program at our Second Annual Summer BBQ on Saturday, August 29th. Children who register at the event will get priority to the program. We will then be offering on site registration at the clinic during our regular chiropractic hours. Online registration will start Tuesday, September 8th.
Fundraising for this program is ongoing. The cost of the program is $47 per child per year. All donations are tax deductible. You can donate as an individual or as a business. Every dollar counts! If we exceed our goal of $4700, we can open the program up to even more children. Donate by clicking here.
Comments