Marquette's Nancy Seminoff received a national Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) medal for two decades of literacy work across the Upper Peninsula.

Seminoff, board chair and president of the Literacy Legacy Fund of Michigan (LLF MI), founded the nonprofit in 2006. The organization partners with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to mail one free, age-appropriate book each month to enrolled children from birth to age 5.

The program now operates at six sites across Marquette and Alger counties, including Ishpeming Public Schools, Marquette Area 49855, Powell Township School, Burt Township Schools, AuTrain-Onota Public Schools and Munising Public Schools. More than 570 children in the Marquette area alone received books through the program in 2025, the Mining Journal reported, citing the fund's most recent annual report.

LLF MI covers $26 per child annually for book costs and mailing in the Marquette 49855 zip code, according to the fund's website. Families pay nothing.

"I'm both humbled and appreciative to accept it on behalf of all of those who are volunteers, program partners, community leaders with whom I've had the good fortune to work …" Seminoff told WLUC.

The Mary Smith Lockwood Medal, established in 1995, recognizes achievement in promoting education outside the formal classroom, according to the DAR. DAR of Michigan State Regent Dawn Brady said Seminoff turned her belief in literacy into action through free books for preschoolers, rural library partnerships, scholarships for future educators and oral health literacy programs reaching hundreds of elementary students.

Before founding LLF MI, Seminoff worked as a teacher, professor and school administrator. She served as president of the Michigan Reading Association and helped establish "March is Reading Month" in the state roughly 40 years ago. She also sat on the board of the International Reading Association.

Since 2008, LLF MI has received more than 75 grants supporting literacy for more than 11,000 people statewide, the Mining Journal reported. A new partnership between the DAR of Michigan and LLF MI will send a book about George Washington to 40 rural libraries across the state.

The fund hopes to expand the Imagination Library program to more communities across the Upper Peninsula. Families in current service areas can enroll children at no cost through the LLF MI website.