Dolly is a celebrity in the truest sense. She’s been making great music for fifty years and had a film and TV career.
I recall she said in interviews that Dollywood was intended to create jobs and encourage tourism in her old hometown. Dollywood and other tourist attractions have certainly been successful in helping the local economy.
Now Dolly is stepping up in a big way to help the families that lost homes in the wildfires. She’s also asking for donations through the dollywood foundation website.
I hope eventually the various country music stars will organize a benefit to raise even more money to help rebuild that area.
This is such an extremely generous gift to provide help the hundreds of families left with almost nothing. Just finding a warm place to stay through the winter will be expensive. It’ll be awhile before many businesses reopen and people can get back to work.
I’ve visited Gatlinburg twice. It’s a cute tourist town and the scenery is gorgeous. I’m wearing a bracelet now I bought on Artist’s Row. I’ve eaten at the Alamo. I’m heartbroken at this catastrophe.
That’s a good point. Entertainers from all genres and actors would turn out to support a charity benefit for the Gatlinburg and Sevier county families.
Dolly’s foundation is supposed to announce their complete plans this Friday. My wife and I plan to donate through the web site.
I’ve driven in the Smokey mountains several times. Always wanted to visit Dollywood and stay at one of the resorts. Still plan to do that in the next few years after the fire damage is cleaned up.
When I saw her video this morning, I was thinking this is a good chance to bridge some of the rural/urban divides that have been discussed and editorialized so much since the election, and to do it with some compassion.
It will be interesting to see who publicly steps up with Dolly. If anyone can cross genre gaps, it’s her.
Seriously, she is. To be born with that much talent is incredible. To be a beautiful woman on top of that is astounding. To then be a class act in every way… aye; she’s a goddess.
Just to continue to heap praise on Dolly, and what a classy and generous lady she is, I hope everybody knows about the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. Her program provides every child a free, age-appropriate book every month from birth until the child reaches 5 years old. We signed up our kids when they were born, and it was an exciting day each month when they would each get their own brand-new book in the mail and we would sit around reading them together. My kids are older now and we have donated most of the books away, but have held on to some of the very special ones.
She started the program in 1995 for the children of her home county in east Tennessee, eventually partnering with the governor to expand the program state-wide. In 2000 Dolly expanded the program to any community willing to partner to support it locally and now over 1 million children in the US, Canada and UK get a new book every month thanks to her vision and support.
Agree, what a wonderful and generous person she is, in addition to the astounding talent. She deserves every accolade that comes her way. We vacationed in Pigeon Forge several years ago, and went to Dollywood. It is a charming amusement park, and the recreation of the house/cabin/shack she grew up in is amazing to see.
The monthly stipend is genius. It’s not just a one-time splash featuring a novelty oversized check, and it shows commitment over time.
My favorite Dolly story, which I’ve probably shared before, is when she took a break and went on vacation, and said “I didn’t bring Dolly.” An insightful woman who understands that persona is not the same as person.
I’ve always thought Dolly’s big wigs and makeup give her a great disguise. No one really knows what she looks like in private. She can put on a baggy sweatshirt and jeans. Don’t wear a wig or makeup. She can go anywhere and not be recognized.
The Dolly Foundation raised a million dollars in only 36 hours. They’ll raise even more in the next few days.
They aren’t wasting time distributing the money either.
Dolly has announced a telethon Dec 13. In Nashville.
She’s wraps up her current tour Dec 10. So she’s literally coming straight off tour and doing the telethon. Should be a great concert since Dolly and the band are already well rehearsed.
It’ll be interesting to see which other stars join her.
Sure hope this is televised. It’s short notice, but Blake Shelton put together a telethon for Oklahoma tornado victims in about ten days (May 2013). It was televised.
One minor quibble - it is the Straight Dope - the facility was there and operating under a different name before Dolly got involved. Her involvement certainly helped keep it viable and the other things she’s done are great. My favorite is a program that sends books to each child born in her home county.
As I mentioned above, that program has expanded, first to include the whole state of Tennessee and then beyond and now includes over a million children in the US, Canada and the UK.
As for her ‘disguise’ I saw an interview with her a few years ago where she said that the loves the fact that she can walk down the sidewalk in downtown Nashville with her husband and not be recognized without her wig & makeup.