CNJ+ February 2023

INTERESTING PEOPLE THROUGHOUT HISTORY Dolly Parton By Pam Teel Having grown up dirt poor in a one room cabin in Tennessee, along with eleven oth er siblings, Dolly Parton is one of the world’s most famous philanthropists. Actress, singer, songwriter, and businesswoman, Dolly never forgot her roots or the people she left behind. PHILANTHROPIST

With her career spanning over fifty years, Parton has been described as a "coun try music legend" and has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Her music includes Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)-certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards. She has had 25 singles reach no. 1 on the Billboard Country Music Charts, a record for a female artist (tied with Reba McEntire). She has 44 career Top 10 Country Albums, a record for any artist, and she has 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. She has composed over 3,000 songs, including "I Will Always Love You" (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper, as well as an international pop hit for Whitney Houston), "Jolene", "Coat of Many Colors", and "9 to 5". As an actress, she has starred in films such as 9 to 5 (1980) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), for which she earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress, as well as Rhinestone (1984), Steel Magnolias (1989), Straight Talk (1992) and Joyful Noise (2012). She has received 11 Grammy Awards out of 50 nominations, including the Lifetime Achievement Award; ten Country Music Association Awards, including Entertainer of the Year and is one of only seven female artists to win the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year Award; five Academy of Country Music Awards, also including Entertainer of the Year; four People's Choice Awards; and three American Music Awards. She is also in a select group to have received at least one nomination from the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, and Emmy Awards. In 1999, Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received the National Medal of Arts and in 2022, she was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. All in all, and with all the millions that she made, she still remains humble, and credits her being poor for shaping her into the woman she is today. The struggles of the poor have always stayed with her. She never forgot what it was like to literally have nothing. Her first money-making job was actually singing, at 10 years old on the Cas Walker show in Knoxville, where she used to ride the bus to the radio station. She was on television before her family even had one at home. With the first money she made, she bought her family a television, a car, and helped to fix the cabin up. She had an idea to build Dollywood to help give a lot of the poor people in the area work, even when her business associates were telling her that it was a big mistake and that she would lose a lot of money. She felt differently, then fired the lawyers and accountants who didn’t believe her, and got new ones and went on to build a highly successful entertainment area, putting a lot of the surrounding people to work, and providing them with a way to make a living. In addition to her own foundation, Parton has contributed funds to a number of charitable organizations outside the Dollywood umbrella, includ ing the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, Save the Music Foundation and the Boot Campaign, an organization that donates proceeds to military veterans who are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and physical injuries. She's been a champion for many causes ranging from childhood literacy to environmental conservation. In 1988, Parton established the Dollywood Foundation, named after her theme park in Tennessee. The foundation’s original goal was to help children in the Appalachian Mountains to achieve educational success, but in 1995 it eventually developed into the Imagination Library, a program that distrib utes books to children across the globe, free of charge, from birth until they begin their first year of school. Parton made the Imagination Library, the major focus of the Dollywood Foundation. They send out one book per month to each enrolled child from birth until their first year of school. The Imagination Library was founded in tribute to Parton’s father, who was unable to read or write. So many of her other relatives didn't get a chance to go to school either. Originally intended to just serve the children of Sevier County, Tennessee, the Imagination Library has since broadened its reach outside of the United States. In 2006, the library began shipping books to children in Canada and, in the following year, the United Kingdom. The program expanded to Australia in 2013. Twenty-three years after it was founded, the Imagination Library mailed its 100 millionth book to a child in March 2018. At present, the pro gram ships more than a million books each month to 1.3 million participants across the globe. In the late 1980’s, Dolly started the Buddy program in her hometown’s local high school, turning her focus to reducing the high school dropout rate in Sevier County, Tennessee. According to the organization, Parton asked every seventh and eighth-grade student to “buddy up” with another student, promising them $500 in cash after they both successfully graduated from high school. The program was a major success for students in that year, and according to the organization, the high school’s dropout rate declined from 35 percent to just 6 percent in response to Parton’s gift. She also offered to give $500 scholarships to any student in Sevier County who wished to attend the nearby Hiwassee College, in an effort to boost graduation rates in the region and improve college attendance.

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