Hillsborough County Community Atlas

The Hillsborough Community Atlas is designed to provide citizens, professionals, and planners with comprehensive and current data and information about communities and neighborhoods in Hillsborough County.

Typically, people who live and work in different communities around the county have found it difficult to gather the information they need from the myriad of agencies that collect the related data and provide particular services.

Often when data and information are provided about communities it is limited to particular subjects. To solve this problem, USF and its partners conceived of the Atlas as a “one stop information shop” to find the variety of information (social, physical and environmental) that relates to a community.

The Atlas functions as a warehouse for a variety of community information including documents and educational links. USF has also strived to make the Atlas a rich resource that educates citizens about the data presented and gives professionals easy access to the specialized information they need.

We encourage you to use the Atlas as a tool to help in maintaining and improving our communities.

Click HERE for the Atlas

Source of content: Community Atlas Site

More About Imagination Library

by Debra Faulk

Amidst a fanfare of front page news and features on-line and on television and radio, Imagination Library of Hillsborough County made its debut on February 26, 2008.

Imagination Library is not an actual building, but a program founded more than 10 years ago by Country-singer Dolly Parton as a gift of encouragement to children in her hometown of Sevier County, Tennessee.

Today, there are almost 800 Imagination Library programs in three countries; with Hillsborough County’s program having the potential to be the largest in the world. 

Imagination Library gives eligible babies and toddlers a new, age-appropriate book each month, free. Eligible children are all children living in Hillsborough County born on or after September 1, 2006, regardless of income. Upon registration, hardback books are mailed to the child’s home. Research tells us that children get ready to read years before they start school. This “getting ready” — or “early literacy” — is what children know about reading before they can actually do it by themselves.

Why bother reading to your baby? Clearly, he or she can’t understand what you are doing or why. But do you wait until your child can understand what you’re saying before you start to speak? Do you bypass lullabies until your baby can carry a tune? Or wait until your child can shake a rattle before offering toys? No, no, and no. So why wait to read 

Reading aloud to your baby is an important form of stimulation. It teaches them about communication; introduces concepts such as numbers, letters, colors, and shapes; builds listening, memory, and vocabulary skills; and gives babies information about the world around them.

Best of all, it is a wonderful shared activity that continues for years to come. Like all members of Hillsborough County’s Imagination Library partnership, the United Way of Tampa Bay is committed to help improve early learning opportunities for all children by providing easily accessible, age appropriate books in the home.

To learn more, register, or make a donation,   visit www.unitedwaytampabay.com/imaginationlibrary. 

Breaking News: The Imagination Library

Program gives free books to all Hillsborough kids (St. Petersburg Times)

Free Books Exercise Imagination (TBO.com)

Fox News Video about Imagination Library

United Way and the Imagination Library Hillsborough County Partnership launched an early literacy initiative to put books in the hands of young children, helping prepare them for kindergarten.Hillsborough County’s kindergarten class of 2011 – infants born on or after September 1, 2006 are eligible to participate in the program.

 

Parents can call 813-272-5017 to register their child.

For more information go to http://www.unitedwaytampabay.com/imaginationlibrary