More than 30,000 Hamilton County children will keep receiving free books each month after Dolly Parton's death, program staff said this week.

Parton died Aug. 25 at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville after a brief battle with cancer. She was 80.

The country music icon founded the Imagination Library in 1995, inspired by her father's inability to read. The program mails one free, age-appropriate book each month to enrolled children from birth through age five. In Hamilton County, it has delivered more than two million books since 2015, according to WLWT.

"We will continue to do what we've been doing, making sure this program continues to be free for our families, whatever it takes," Kristy High, with the Hamilton County Imagination Library, told WLWT.

Ohio leads the nation in Imagination Library participation, with more than 400,000 children enrolled. About 60 percent of all eligible kids in the state receive a monthly book, according to the Statehouse News Bureau. The current state budget sets aside $8 million for the program.

Ohio First Lady Fran DeWine, who helped expand the program statewide beginning in August 2019, said the network of county partners would press on. "They're all very passionate about Dolly. We're not going to give up. We're going to keep this going," DeWine said in an interview with WLWT.

In a written statement, DeWine said more than one million Ohio children have received free books through the program, totaling nearly 28 million books statewide.

Ohio was the first state to let parents enroll newborns directly through birth certificate paperwork. The program reached all 88 Ohio counties by November 2020.

Parton's family has asked fans to donate to the Imagination Library in lieu of flowers. Gov. Mike DeWine ordered U.S. and Ohio flags flown at half-staff on public buildings through sunset Sept. 1, according to Fox 19.

Families in Evendale, Woodlawn, Sharonville, Springdale and across Hamilton County can enroll children at their local library. The program is available in all counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.