Beloved country-music icon Dolly Parton devoted a long time of her life to philanthropy and different charity work — in a touching nod to her roots rising up dirt-poor in Appalachia.
Parton, who died at age 80 on Tuesday, opened her Dollywood theme park in Tennessee in 1986 as each a present of delight in her background and a need to provide again to the neighborhood.
The theme park is the biggest employer in Sevier County, creating greater than 23,000 jobs there and producing round $1.8 billion yearly for the area, in line with a 2021 financial affect research.
“I really like the truth that I’m able to give one thing again and supply so many individuals with jobs the place none existed earlier than,” Parton wrote in her 1994 memoir “Dolly: My Life and Different Unfinished Enterprise.”
“The theme park is rather more concerning the mountains and the tradition of the individuals who stay there than it’s about Dolly Parton,” she mentioned.
“Dolly Parton merely occurs to be probably the most well-known hillbilly from these explicit hills.”
Parton joked that the park’s title got here from a playful fantasy she had — sparked by a go to to California early in her profession.
“After I first noticed the Hollywood signal, I assumed, ‘Wouldn’t or not it’s nice if I may change that H to a D and make it Dollywood?’ ” she wrote.
The theme park’s revenues instantly fund and assist the executive prices of the Dollywood Basis, too.
The “Jolene” singer arrange her Dollywood Basis in 1988, impressed by her poor upbringing in rural east Tennessee.
As her father was unable to learn or write, her charitable work targeted closely on schooling, literacy, and healthcare, in addition to native catastrophe reduction.
Comply with the newest information on the passing of nation music legend Dolly Parton:
Since its inception, the Dollywood Basis’s signature Creativeness Library program has despatched greater than 270 million free books to youngsters the world over, in line with Time — which named Parton one of many prime philanthropists of the previous century in a 2025 characteristic.
Parton’s household Tuesday requested that in lieu of flowers, followers make donations to the Creativeness Library.
Early within the historical past of her basis, Parton arrange the Buddy Program, pledging $500 to each seventh- and eighth-grader in Sevier County who accomplished highschool.
Her efforts had been credited with serving to to decrease the native dropout price from 35% to six%.
She was additionally a significant donor to COVID-19 vaccine analysis, giving $1 million to Tennessee’s Vanderbilt College Medical Heart for the event of the Moderna vaccine.
Individually, Parton funded pediatric infectious illness analysis at Vanderbilt.
A wildlife lover, Parton additionally partnered with the American Eagle Basis to arrange the Eagle Mountain Sanctuary at Dollywood, which homes the US’s largest exhibit of non-releasable bald eagles and helps eagle rehabilitation initiatives.
In 2016, she created the My Folks Fund in response to devastating wildfires that ravaged her hometown of Sevier County.
Parton gave $1,000 per thirty days for six months to households who misplaced their properties within the fires, with reduction donations finally hitting $12.5 million.
In recognition of her a long time of generosity, she was awarded the distinguished Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2022.
In October 2024, she additionally partnered with the Mountain Methods Basis to provide $1 million to flood victims affected by Hurricane Helene in east Tennessee.
