The Cause

Some races donate a few dollars from your entry fee to a charitable cause. This race is different — every penny we make goes to help the children of our community. We have no paid staff, and the vast majority of the work of putting on the race is done by volunteers. All proceeds from this event support the charitable programs of the Kiwanis Club of Cloverdale Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, including fully funding the Cloverdale chapter of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, bringing the gift of reading to the children of Cloverdale.

The Imagination Library, begun by Dolly Parton in 1995, fosters a love of reading in preschool children and promotes early childhood literacy. Locally, the Imagination Library provides a high-quality, age-appropriate book to every Cloverdale child, every month, from birth until the age of five. It’s during these important first years that the seeds of literacy are sown, and literacy is key to learning in all subjects throughout life.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library currently serves over 1,600 communities in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia, and over 1,000,000 children receive books each month. To date, the Imagination Library has delivered over 150 million books to children worldwide, and nearly 40,000 in Cloverdale.

In addition to the Imagination Library this event supports several other literacy based Cloverdale Kiwanis programs which positively impact the students in all three Cloverdale schools.