happy birthday to my fav girl, @KelseaBallerini!! thank you for everything you’ve done for me & for always being the kindest to me <3 i’m so forever grateful 🤍 you are truly sunshine in human form!
happy birthday to the best artist, the best inspiration, the best to ever do it.. @KelseaBallerini <3 i adore you & i’m so glad to be in your corner, always. sending you the biggest hug & so very much love. i love you BIG TIME, mean it! 🫶🏻
just a reminder that being upset over a celebrity’s death is not parasocial in any way. these are real people that made real art that impacted you. you are allowed to mourn & grieve something special to you
In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.
She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.
The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.
She handed out the checks herself.
In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.
When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.
You've probably heard that part.
Here's the part you haven't:
The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.
Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.
She built her county an entire hospital.
She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.
In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.
Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.
In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.
And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.
She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway.
She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.
Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸
Imagination Library has 40k followers, but should have MORE. If you can't donate in Dolly's honor, then we could at least help grow the platform and its visibility by following.
Dolly Parton was literally the rose that grew from concrete. She grew up poor in rural Appalachia, then became the star she was meant to be, built hospitals, donated millions to charity & opened a library that gave millions of books to children. She’ll be forever missed