Bendigo’s Fundraising Success for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
The Bendigo Imagination Library team has once again shown the power of community-led fundraising with their 2025 Annual Golf Day. They raised an impressive $15,000, which will cover the cost of books for over 300 children for more than five months.
The day brought together 116 players from across the region for a fun and impactful day of golf — all in support of getting books into the hands of children.
Here we have one of the golfing teams teeing off in style — Tim Rooke, Arkie Rooke, Darren Waters and Greg Farmer.
This annual event has become a major highlight on the community calendar. In 2024, the Golf Day also raised $15,000, which was used to provide 1,666 books to 300 children over five months — a remarkable contribution that continues to make a lasting impact on early childhood literacy in the region.
It was an amazing day for our major fundraising event for the year and now we are able to continue to provide over 300 children who have limited or no access to books at home in Bendigo, a free book in the post every month which costs our committee $9.00 [a book] or over $33,000 per year.”
– Andrew Coldwell, Bendigo Imagination Library
The Golf Day featured special prizes and drew strong local support from businesses, sponsors, and volunteers. It’s a true celebration of community, with meaningful outcomes for children and families.
We’re proud to champion the efforts of the Bendigo coordinators and encourage other Imagination Library partners to take inspiration from this successful model. Whether it’s golf, trivia nights, morning teas, or fun runs — community-led events like this can have a lasting legacy.
With plans already underway for another Golf Day in 2026, we can’t wait to see what’s next for Bendigo!
Bendigo Imagination Library is currently a referral-based program only. To check if the Imagination Library is running in your LGA visit Find My Programme – Australia and enter your postal code.
