Last week, I was truly proud to host the National Governor’s Association Annual Summer Meeting in Portland, Maine and I was proud to join the iconic singer-songwriter Dolly Parton to announce that the State of Maine is launching a statewide expansion of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in 2023.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening.

You know, the simple act of reading out loud to a child stimulates brain development, it reduces stress and anxiety, it builds vocabulary, and develops the literacy skills that child needs to succeed in school and in life. 

Supporting childhood literacy also has significant impacts on our economy.  Our state needs every person to be able to contribute and that starts with giving them the skills they need at an early age.

So through our Department of Education, my Administration has been working hard to increase early childhood literacy rates in the State of Maine.

Every year, we sponsor the statewide “Read to Me” challenge to encourage adults to read to their children.

This spring, with the support of the Legislature, we invested $10 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds to create and expand pre-school programs across the State.

This summer, we are hosting our first ever Educator Summit to train our teachers in the most effective, evidence-based practices for increasing childhood literacy.

Later this fall, we are creating “Literacy for ME 2.0” to revamp our statewide literacy plan and we are creating the “Maine Association for Improving Literacy” to mobilize a network of educators who are committed to supporting statewide literacy efforts. 

And last week, I was proud to announce that the State of Maine is officially joining Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to provide free, high quality books every month to every child age 0 to 5 in our state. This program will complement existing programs in the state of Maine including the Libra Foundation’s Raising Readers and the Cashman family’s Dirigo Reads.

With the support of our Legislature, we’ve now dedicated $200,000 in the biennial budget to go to the Maine State Library to partner with local libraries to distribute the Imagination Library books statewide. Imagine, a paperback book coming to your child every month.

The Imagination Library will provide more than 105,000 books to local libraries for an estimated 14,000 children in the first year of this program. This will generate inspiration, education, and joy in every child’s life, no matter what else may be going on.

We hope to extend this program beyond local libraries to school districts across the State of Maine until every child has access to free, high-quality books every month.

Maine is proud to join the family of states who participate in the Imagination Library. And on behalf of all the Maine children, and parents, who will be served by this program, I got to thank Dolly Parton for her investment in our state and in the nation’s children.

This is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening.

At the height of the pandemic, people were unable to connect safely with their community. This fact alone had particularly deadly consequences for people suffering from substance use disorder here in Maine and across the country.

While the pandemic waxes and wanes, we are still losing people with substance use disorder every day.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

This week, I held my fourth annual Opioid Response Summit, with the theme of “Community, Connection, Compassion,” to reflect on this ongoing epidemic and to recommit to saving lives and to supporting life-long recovery.

You know, this is not a white collar or a blue-collar epidemic. It is not a rural problem, or an urban problem or a suburban problem. It knows no boundaries, no zip code, no tax status. It knows no age limits. And sometimes it is multigenerational. And it is more deadly now, because of the kinds of drugs, like Fentanyl, that are being infused in other drugs as well.

But it is the children that I worry about the most. And it is the children who ought to stir us to action.

The headlines tell the story:

A young child whose teddy bear was contaminated with Fentanyl.

A three year who ingested heroin and had to be revived with Narcan.

An 11-month old infant exposed to Fentanyl.

A 14 year old who died — overdosed and died — a few weeks ago, a day after her graduation from middle school. A straight A student.

If these aren’t wake-up calls, I don’t know what is.

Whatever the causes – and they are multiple and they are terribly complicated – let’s not pass this problem on to another generation.

Not now when we now have the means to address it – and the will to act.

To stop drugs from reaching Maine, we have focused on disrupting mid-level and higher level drug traffickers. Last year alone, Maine DEA agents seized nearly 23 pounds of Fentanyl all over Maine.  So far this year, they have seized about 16 pounds of Fentanyl and 48 kilograms of Methamphetamine, equally dangerous.  

We will continue to support law enforcement’s efforts to stop drug trafficking, but we are also focused on preventing addiction, on expanding treatment, and supporting the life-long recovery of people with substance use disorders.

That’s why for the last three years we have been training people to become recovery coaches, help people turn their lives around. As well as getting hundreds of thousands of doses of Narcan out into the communities to save people from deadly overdoses and then give them the help they need.  

This session, we worked with the Legislature to invest more than $110 million through the biennial budget, this was a bipartisan move. We invested in new prevention, treatment, and recovery programs.  

And this week, I committed to investing another $4.5 million dollars for new treatment beds all across Maine.

There is no denying that things have been very challenging these last two years, but I firmly believe that without the actions taken by this administration, we would have lost many more people to this epidemic. 

We can’t be discouraged. We cannot lose heart.

We won’t quit – and I will not quit – until every child in Maine has a chance for health, security, and stability; until every person in our state is able to become their best selves – the best that they can be productively, whatever their past, whatever their troubles, whatever their needs.

We have a long way to go toward healing our state, and helping our nation heal, and getting people back into the workforce; but there is hope and there is the hard work of Maine people, which has seen us through hard times before.

That is why we are recommitting to our sense of community – a community in Maine who cares and who never gives up. Because that is who we are.

This is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.