Dolly Parton gave the world "Jolene," "9 to 5" and "I Will Always Love You." She also spent decades giving to others, often in the Tennessee mountains where she grew up. She died in Nashville in August 2026 at age 80. Her giving remains one of her best-documented legacies. She mailed free books to children, sent monthly checks to families after a wildfire and paid for medical research. Her generosity reached classrooms, hospitals, disaster zones and even endangered birds. Here are ten times she put her success to work for people who needed help.
1. Gave $1 million that helped support COVID-19 vaccine research
In April 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was spreading, Dolly Parton announced on Instagram that she was giving $1 million to Vanderbilt University for coronavirus research. She credited her longtime friend Dr. Naji Abumrad, a Vanderbilt researcher, who had told her the university was making progress. The money first went to research on treatments while vaccines were still being developed. In November 2020, news reports citing the New England Journal of Medicine said her donation had helped support the research behind Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine. Later coverage noted that her gift contributed to that work but did not pay for the vaccine on its own. Vanderbilt's vaccine research director said the center took part in both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine studies.
2. Started a free book program inspired by her father
In 1995, Dolly Parton launched the Imagination Library through the Dollywood Foundation in Sevier County, Tennessee, where she was born and raised. The idea was simple: mail a free book to a child every month from birth until kindergarten, whatever the family's income. Parton said she started it to honor her father, who could not read or write. The hometown project grew across the United States, then expanded to Canada in 2006, the United Kingdom in 2007, Australia in 2013 and the Republic of Ireland in 2019. The program gave away its 200 millionth book in 2023. By 2026, it had given more than 300 million free books to children in those five countries.
3. Promised $500 to students who finished high school
In 1988, Dolly Parton founded the Dollywood Foundation to improve educational opportunities for children in Sevier County, Tennessee. One of its first efforts, the Buddy Program, began on April 29, 1988. Seventh and eighth graders were paired with a friend, and the two pledged to help each other stay in school until graduation. Parton promised $500 to each student who earned a diploma, with one condition: their buddy had to graduate too. According to the foundation, the dropout rate in the participating classes fell from 35 percent to 6 percent. Seven years later, the same foundation launched her Imagination Library.
4. Opened a sanctuary for bald eagles at Dollywood
In April 1991, Dollywood and the American Eagle Foundation held the grand opening of Eagle Mountain Sanctuary at Dolly Parton's theme park. Parton, Bob Hope and Al Cecere of the American Eagle Foundation released a bald eagle into the habitat. At the time, the bald eagle was listed as endangered, mainly because of hunting and the pesticide DDT. The sanctuary gave a lifelong home to non-releasable eagles, birds that could not survive in the wild, and it became the largest sanctuary of its kind. The partnership lasted about 35 years. After a storm damaged the sanctuary in 2026, the eagles moved permanently to the foundation's 50-acre campus in Kodak, Tennessee.
5. Raised money for a new hospital in her home county
Dolly Parton was honorary chair of the Dr. Robert F. Thomas Foundation, which worked to build a new hospital and cancer center in Sevierville, Tennessee, in her home county. In 2007, she gave a benefit concert for the project. Together with matching pledges from Dollywood and her Dixie Stampede dinner theater, it helped raise about $1 million. The hospital, LeConte Medical Center, opened in Sevierville in 2010. It includes the 30,000-square-foot Dolly Parton Center for Women's Services, which now operates as part of Covenant Health. A birthing unit bearing her name was added later, so her name is part of the hospital where many local families welcome their children.
6. Sent monthly checks to families who lost homes in wildfires
In late November 2016, wildfires swept through the Great Smoky Mountains around Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and destroyed homes across Sevier County. Within days, Dolly Parton announced in a video that her Dollywood companies and the Dollywood Foundation would set up the My People Fund. It would give $1,000 a month for six months to every Sevier County family who had lost their primary home in the fires, whether they rented or owned. On December 13, she hosted a telethon for the effort. The fund raised more than $9 million and helped more than 900 families. In 2018, the FBI gave her its Director's Community Leadership Award for her wildfire relief work.
7. Donated her program's 100 millionth book to the Library of Congress
On February 28, 2018, Dolly Parton visited the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., to mark a milestone for her Imagination Library: its 100 millionth free book. She chose her own children's book, Coat of Many Colors, which is based on a song she wrote nearly 50 years earlier. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden accepted the book, and Parton read it aloud to the children at the event. At the time, the program was mailing an age-appropriate book every month to more than 1 million children, from birth until they started kindergarten. Each book was addressed to the child, not the parent.
8. Had Dollywood cover college costs for its workers
In February 2022, Dollywood Parks & Resorts announced that it would pay 100 percent of tuition, fees and books for employees who wanted to continue their education. The benefit covered seasonal, part-time and full-time workers, whom the company calls hosts. The program started on February 24, 2022, and new hosts could sign up on their first day of work. Thirty partner schools offered fully funded programs. The company would also pay up to $5,250 a year toward about 150 other programs. The benefit ran through GROW U., a program from Herschend Enterprises, Dolly Parton's operating partner in Dollywood, powered by Guild Education.
9. Pledged $2 million for Hurricane Helene recovery in Appalachia
After Hurricane Helene caused severe flooding across eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, Dolly Parton returned to the mountains where she grew up. On October 4, 2024, she spoke at a press conference in Newport, Tennessee, in front of a crowd gathered in a Walmart parking lot. She pledged $1 million of her own money to the Mountain Ways Foundation, a nonprofit helping families recover from the flood damage. Her businesses, Dollywood Parks & Resorts, Dolly Parton's Stampede and Pirates Voyage Dinner & Show, added another $1 million, for a total of $2 million. "We're all here to mend those broken hearts," she told the crowd.
10. Gave a gift that renamed a Knoxville children's hospital
On February 26, 2026, East Tennessee Children's Hospital in Knoxville announced that it would become Dolly Parton Children's Hospital after a gift from the singer. The hospital did not say how much she gave. Its chief development officer called the gift "a generational collaboration that will transform pediatric care in this region." The hospital has a main campus in Knoxville and more than 20 locations across eastern Tennessee. Since it opened in 1937, it has had an open-door policy: no child is turned away because of race, religion or inability to pay. Parton said, "I've always believed that every child deserves a fair chance to grow up healthy, hopeful and surrounded with love."
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Parton
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollywood_Foundation
- https://abcnews4.com/news/coronavirus/dolly-parton-1m-donation-helps-discovery-moderna-vaccine-covid
- https://www.medicaldaily.com/dolly-parton-health-philanthropy-vanderbilt-vaccine-childrens-hospital-477821
- https://imaginationlibrary.com/about-us/
- https://www.wect.com/2026/08/25/story-behind-dolly-partons-imagination-library-impact-it-has-made/
- https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/dolly-parton-eagle-mountain-sanctuary
- https://eagles.org/?p=153704
- https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/dolly-parton-s-health-care-legacy-two-decades-of-giving
- https://www.wtvr.com/2016/12/01/dolly-parton-to-give-1000-per-month-to-families-who-lost-everything-in-tennessee-wildfires
- https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2018/03/pic-of-the-week-dolly-parton-the-book-lady/
- https://www.live5news.com/2022/02/08/dollywood-employees-get-free-tuition
- https://www.ktvu.com/news/dolly-parton-helene-donation-newport-tennessee-walmart
- https://www.live5news.com/2026/02/26/childrens-hospital-is-being-renamed-after-dolly-parton
- https://www.michiganpublic.org/2026-08-25/dolly-parton-one-of-country-musics-most-singular-performers-has-died-at-age-80
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dolly_Parton_accepting_Liseberg_Applause_Award_2010_portrait.jpg
