A Toast to Dolly Parton and Her Work in Public Education

In case you didn't know, this from The Dollywood Foundation:

The Dollywood Foundation was created in 1988 by Dolly Parton to inspire the children in her home county to achieve educational success. Initial efforts focused on decreasing the drop out rate in the county’s high school.

 In the early 90’s Dolly promised every 7th-grade and 8th-grade student she would personally give them $500 if they graduated from high school. Each student had to pick a buddy and each supported the other. This effort, called the Buddy Program, reduced the drop out rate for these two classes from 35% to 6%. More importantly, the program catalyzed the community to provide additional resources to sustain this improvement in the drop out rate.

In 1995, the Foundation implemented Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Sevier County, Tennessee. This monthly book gifting program for children under five focused on inspiring a love of books and reading for all preschool children in the county. 

What was founded as a local program grew into an international movement through the unique partnership among the Foundation, the publisher, the fulfillment centers and the thousands of local organizations who adopted the program. The Imagination Library continues to be the signature program of the Foundation.

The Imagination Library has given out over 300M books worldwide. 

Scholarships

The Foundation also offers five scholarships to the county’s high school seniors to help further their education at any accredited university. The Dolly Parton Scholarship is a $15,000 scholarship awarded annually at each high school. The scholarships are for students who have a dream they wish to pursue and who can successfully communicate their plan and commitment to realize their dreams.

The Foundation also administers several additional scholarships. In 2016, Dolly provided a $30,000 scholarship to a young girl in Arkansas to recognize the Imagination Library’s achievement of distributing books to 1 million children each month. Once she reaches 18 years of age in 2032 the scholarship will be $60,000.

In additional to those scholarships, she covered college tuition and expenses for her employees at the Dollywood theme park. 

Dolly won the National Education Association award in 2022 for her efforts to promote early literacy.

Dolly Parton was named the 2022 NEA Friend of Education for her “Together, let’s continue to inspire kids to dream more, care more, learn more, and therefore, be more," she told delegates via a video message. 

"My daddy was the smartest man I have ever known, but I knew his inability to read probably kept him from seeing all of his dreams come true. Inspiring kids to love to read became my mission,” she said after launching the literacy program. 

Her literacy efforts reached beyond our borders to Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Republic of Ireland. 

She also gave $1M to Vanderbilt University to directly fund research that helped create the Moderna COVID vaccine. She was also videotaped receiving her vaccination. This vaccine probably helped millions of children. 

On a personal note, Parton has been part of the celebrity landscape of my life. She was an inspiration on so many levels. She was and will always be a great American. 

But in all the news stories after her death, I ran across a video of her speaking to the staff at some museum. I had forgotten how short she was (5 feet) but she always wore heels between 3 and 6 inches. As a fellow shortie, I applaud her tenacity and effort.