Tim Richter and his wife, Linda, had taught for over 30 years near Buffalo, New York--he in computers, she in special education. "Teaching means everything to us," Tim would say. In April1998, he learned he would need a heart operation. It was the kind of news that leads to some serious thinking about life's 1 . Not long after the surgery, Tim saw a brochure describing Imagination Library, a program started by Dolly Parton' s foundation ( 基金会 ) that mailed a book every month to children from birth to age five in the singer's home town of Sevier, Tennessee.“I thought, maybe Linda and I could do something like this when we retire," Tim recalls. He placed the brochure on his desk, "as a 2 ." Five years later, now retired and with that brochure still on the desk, Tim 3 on imagination library .com. The program had been opened up to partners who could take advantage of book and postage 4 . The 5 of the books was of great concern to the Richters. 6 sign up online, they went to Dollywood for a look-see. “We didn’t want to give the children rubbish,” says Linda. The books-reviewed each year by teachers, literacy specialists and Dollywood board members-included classics such as Ezra Jack Keats’s The Snowy Day and newer books like Anna Dewdney’s Llama Llama series. 7 , the couple set up the Richter Family Foundation and got to work. Since 2004, they have shipped more than 12,200 books to 8 in their area. Megan Williams, a mother of four, is more than appreciative: “This program introduces us to books I’ve never heard of .” The Richters spend about $ 400 a month 9 books to 200 children. “Some people sit there and wait to die,” says Tim. “Others get as busy as they can in the time they have 10 .”