The inimitable, irreplaceable Dolly Parton died Tuesday after a brief battle with cancer. The country legend and cultural icon was perhaps our last universally beloved celebrity, bridging the widening political and social divide in America. In addition to creating classic tunes like “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” selling over 100 million records, taking home 11 Grammy Awards and starring in celebrated films such as “9 to 5,” “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and “Steel Magnolias,” Parton worked tirelessly away from the cameras to make the world a better place.
Here are some extraordinary things Parton did that you probably didn’t know. In 1995, Parton founded The Imagination Library, a charity that gifts books to children under the age of 5 for free, in honor of her late father. The Imagination Library was the result of a partnership between her Dollywood Foundation and local organizations, and began distributing books to kids in her local Sevier County, Tennessee, before expanding worldwide.
Last year, the Imagination Library announced that it had gifted over 300 million books since its inception, including 40,356,668 in 2025 alone, or a book every 0.78 seconds). Parton created The Imagination Library in honor of her father, who couldn’t read. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me because I created the Imagination Library as a tribute to my Dadd,” Parton wrote.
Inspiring kids to love to read became my mission.” The Imagination Library received a $2 million pledge from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce as part of their $26 million in charity donations in honor of their wedding. Following Parton’s death, the Imagination Library stated that it would continue gifting books to kids, despite Republican legislatures in states like Indiana and Missouri cutting its funding. Parton’s family asked that fans make donations to the Imagination Library in her memory.
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic — we’re talking April of 2020 — Parton donated $1 million to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center for research into Covid-19 that eventually helped in the development of the Moderna Covid vaccine. Parton did so at the behest of Dr. Naji Abumrad, who’d treated Parton at the hospital years earlier following a car accident.
She was subsequently administered the Moderna vaccine on camera while singing “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine!” to the tune of “Jolene,” to spread awareness to her legion of fans. Parton also donated $1 million to the pediatric cancer wing of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in honor of her friend’s niece, Hannah Dennison, who was successfully treated for leukemia there. Parton died at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center inside of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center after being hospitalized on Aug. 21.
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