Dolly Parton, 80, is being remembered for her decades of philanthropy and charity work following the announcement of her death on Tuesday.
The country music icon opened Dollywood theme park in 1986 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, as both a show of pride in her Appalachian roots and a desire to give back to the community. The “Jolene” singer set up her Dollywood Foundation in 1988, inspired by her poor upbringing in rural east Tennessee.
“I love the fact that I am able to give something back and provide so many people with jobs where none existed before,” she wrote in her 1994 memoir “Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business.”
“The theme park is much more about the mountains and the culture of the people who live there than it is about Dolly Parton,” she wrote in the same book. “Dolly Parton simply happens to be the most famous hillbilly from those particular hills.”
As her father was unable to read or write, her charitable work focused heavily on education, literacy, and healthcare, as well as local disaster relief. Since its inception, the Dollywood Foundation’s signature Imagination Library program has sent more than 270 million free books to kids across the world, according to Time — which named Parton one of the top philanthropists of the past century in a 2025 feature.
She was also a major donor to COVID-19 vaccine research, giving $1 million to Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center for the development of the Moderna vaccine. Separately, Parton funded pediatric infectious disease research at Vanderbilt.
Much of her philanthropy focused on helping poor people in her beloved native state.
In 2016, she created the My People Fund in response to devastating wildfires that ravaged her hometown of Sevier County. Parton gave $1,000 per month for six months to families who lost their homes in the fires, with relief donations eventually hitting $12.5 million.
In recognition of her decades of generosity, she was awarded the prestigious Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2022.
Parton’s death at age 80 was announced Tuesday. The singer-songwriter, actor and producer built a career spanning more than five decades in entertainment while maintaining her commitment to charitable giving throughout.