Everyone knows Dolly Parton is a music legend.
But today, in honor of her 76th birthday, we want to do something different.
Here are seven times Dolly Parton helped save the world.
A thread. 🧵
In 2020, Dolly Parton donated $1M to Covid research.
That donation helped fund the Moderna vaccine.
She’s the only musician who funded a vaccine, then literally got jabbed with it herself.
She even sang one of her songs to celebrate the moment.
In 1995, Dolly Parton saw her hometown’s literacy rates were terrible.
The high school dropout rate was 34%.
To help, she started giving our free books as a way to encourage kids to read.
Today, she’s given out more than 100 million free books to kids across America.
After a wildfire hit the Great Smoky Mountains in her home state of Tennessee, Dolly jumped into action.
She launched a fund to give families a monthly stipend for six months.
Then, she gave scholarships to all junior and senior high school students who had lost their homes.
Dolly once served as Executive Producer for Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
One day, she found out that the show’s producer, Gail Berman, wasn’t being paid the same as her male counterparts.
What did Dolly do?
She cut her a check right then and there, to cover the difference.
When Dolly was a kid, she grew up poor.
How poor?
She couldn’t afford a coat, so her mom stitched her one from scraps of fabric she had lying around.
Dolly was so proud of it that she later turned it into a song, called “Coat of Many Colors”.
In 1992, Whitney Houston covered Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.”
The first time Dolly heard Whitney’s cover was on the radio while she was driving.
How did Dolly react?
She had to pull over her car because she was so blown away by how beautiful it sounded.
Whitney's cover of “I Will Always Love You” earned Dolly Parton $10 Million in royalties.
How did Dolly spend it?
By investing it into a historically Black neighborhood in Tennessee.
She set up an office space there, and used it to bring jobs and economy into the neighborhood.
Happy Birthday, Dolly.
Keep rocking on.
🎵❤️
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.