Fun fact about Dolly Parton: She earned well over a billion dollars in her lifetime but was never a billionaire due to her extensive philanthropy. She consistently gave away massive portions of her wealth throughout her life.
Dolly funded the Imagination Library, sent musical instruments and uniforms to band departments in schools throughout the South, helped fund COVID vaccine research, and donated millions to natural disasters.
She was a constant LGBT supporter, and she believed that black lives mattered. She supported the trans population. She just loved everyone and she made sure we knew it.
She was a Christian. Instead of using her Christianity to judge, she used it as Jesus did, to love her neighbor. She didn’t hoard her money; she used it to help people wherever and whenever she could. That’s why there’s such an outpouring of love.
Be like Dolly.
I didn’t even want to click on this and listen because nobody really covers zeppelin well, but Daniel isn’t even fucking joking, this is just unbelievable
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 🇺🇸
This is so cute but it’s absolutely sending me that Dolly made Sabrina change the lyrics from “don’t embarrass me motherfucker” to “don’t embarrass me like the others” but let her keep the premise of the video being that she beat that man and threw him in the back of the truck
In 1975, a plane packed with off-duty flight attendants and airline crew survived a catastrophic crash because the passengers already knew exactly how to evacuate an aircraft.
After an Overseas National Airways DC-10 struck a flock of seagulls during takeoff from JFK Airport, the crippled jet burst into flames, but the trained crew and cabin staff carried out a near-perfect evacuation.
All 139 people on board survived, with only two serious injuries and around 30 minor injuries, making it one of aviation's most extraordinary survival stories.