By Team Zeteo
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
In 2024, Dolly Parton received the PEACE Through Music Award, recognizing her longstanding efforts to use music and philanthropy to promote peace and connection.
In accepting the award, Parton reflected on what she believes people share across political and cultural divides:
“Is that not what we’re all looking for: a little peace? We all want it. Some of us, all around this old world, can only dream about it. But as people, we all deserve it.”
Throughout her life and career, the 10-time Grammy Award-winning artist put that philosophy into practice through philanthropy, education, healthcare, and her public advocacy for treating others with dignity. On Tuesday, she died at the age of 80.
Here are nine ways she made an impact:
1. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
Parton founded the Imagination Library, a children’s literacy program, in 1995 in honor of her father, Robert Lee Parton Sr. A sharecropper and father of 12, she said her father was one of the wisest men she’s ever known, but his inability to read or write probably kept him from seeing all his dreams come true.
The Library is dedicated to “inspiring a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to age five” throughout the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, and Australia. As of June 2026, the Imagination Library had gifted over 325 MILLION books to children around the world.
But the program has also become caught up in broader political debates over state funding for public programs or faced challenges due to wider funding cuts, including in Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, and Maine.
2. The Dollywood Foundation
Parton founded the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 to encourage children in her home of Sevier County, Tennessee, to achieve educational success. Efforts included the Buddy Program, through which Parton promised every 7th- and 8th-grade student in the early 1990s that she would personally give them $500 if they graduated high school. The dropout rate among these students fell from 35% to 6%.
The foundation also supports students through scholarships and other programs.
3. Funded COVID-19 Research
In April 2020, as the world was in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parton announced she had donated $1 million to Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help fund early COVID-19 research, including research that contributed to what would become the Moderna vaccine, one of the first COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the United States.
In a 2021 Twitter post, Dolly joked about her contribution by singing a rewritten version of her hit song “Jolene,” in which she changed the lyrics to “vaccine, vaccine, vaccine.” She used the song to encourage everyone to get vaccinated, telling those who were hesitant or, as she put it, “cowards out there – don’t be such a chicken squat. Get out there and get your shot.”
4. Supported LGBTQ+ Rights
Parton has also repeatedly used her public platform to advocate for LGBTQ+ communities, despite coming from a conservative-leaning region of the country and building much of her career in country music.
When asked about same-sex marriage on ‘The Joy Behar Show’ in 2009, her response was characteristically blunt and humorous: “Sure, why can’t they get married? They should suffer like the rest of us do.”
In a 2016 interview with Larry King, Parton was asked directly about her support for the LGBTQ community, stating: “I do not believe we should criticize or judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are God’s children. We are who we are. And we should be allowed to be who we are.”
When King asked whether faith-based groups had taken issue with her position, Parton said “absolutely,” before adding: “If you’re the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people? That’s God’s job.”
5. Donated to Relief Efforts
In October 2024, after Hurricane Helene brought devastating floods across Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina, Parton and her businesses donated $2 million to support those affected.
In 2016, following a wildfire in the Great Smoky Mountain Region of her native Tennessee, Parton established the My People’s Fund to help rebuild and help her hometown. Her plan was to give $1,000 per month for six months to about 900 families impacted by the fire. But the Dollywood Foundation received so many donations that it increased the amount to $5,000 in the final month. In total, $12.5 million went to the people and relief efforts of Sevier County.
6. Her Music Internationally & Politically
In 2004, Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) was flying to the U.S. to visit Parton to meet for a music collaboration when his name was found on a “terrorist” watchlist. His flight was diverted, and he was rapidly deported. Parton publicly defended him, stating that the government made a mistake, saying there was no “evil bone in that man’s body,” and calling him one of the “hearts of angels” who should be cherished.
On her 2005 album, “Those Were the Days,”she featured artists such as Islam, Kris Kristofferson, who was known for his anti-U.S. intervention stance, and Judy Collins, who was deeply associated with the 1960s protest movement and performed music connected to civil rights, feminism, antiwar activism, and social justice.
“Those Were the Days” is almost a mini-history of protest music, despite Dolly insisting she wasn’t trying to make a political album. She said at the time, “I’m certainly not into any kind of political thing or protest,” while acknowledging the songs’ antiwar themes.
Her hit, “9 to 5,” has also been appropriated by political movements worldwide.
7. Defended Black Lives Matter Protesters
While Parton didn’t describe herself as a political activist and said she didn’t “do politics,” she defended the right to protest, especially in 2020, as the nation experienced a reckoning on race that impacted all of American society, including country music.
In an August 2020 interview with Billboard, Parton told the music magazine:
“I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen… And of course, Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No! Everybody matters.”
She also discussed the 2018 decision to rename the popular Dollywood dinner attraction, previously known as Dixie Stampede, to Dolly Parton’s Stampede. The change was made when it was brought to Parton’s attention that the word “Dixie” was offensive.
8. Funded Healthcare
Lending more than her name to the formerly known East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, Parton gave a “generational and transformational” donation this year.
In February, Parton shared an Instagram Reel announcing that the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital has officially been renamed the Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital.
She’s also supported healthcare in other parts of Tennessee.
9. Advocated for Animal Conservation and Welfare
Parton dedicated decades of her life to supporting animal welfare, wildlife conservation, and pet rescue organizations.
She collaborated with PETA on many campaigns, using her bluegrass song “Will He Be Waiting For Me?” in a heartwarming ad reminding countless people that dogs are social animals who need company.
Parton partnered with the American Eagle Foundation (AEF) to open an Eagle Mountain Sanctuary at Dollywood in 1991. More than 400 bald eagles have been released into the wild by the AEF. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service honored her with a Partnership Award for supporting bald eagle recovery.
Zeteo’s Kassandra Scheese contributed to this piece.
