Look, you need to be a tough literal-minded skeptic, fine, but this is an extremely weird hill to die on.

https://nurse.org/news/dolly-parton-nurses-healthcare-legacy/

Dolly Parton died Aug. 25 at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, surrounded by loved ones, in the health system she had championed for more than two decades. She was 80, and her team said she faced a brief battle with cancer.

. . . The renaming capped a long relationship with children's hospitals in her home state. In Nashville, Parton funded the pediatric cancer program at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt with what Vanderbilt calls a transformational contribution, given in honor of her friend Dr. Naji Abumrad and her niece, Hannah Dennison, who was treated there for leukemia as a child. In 2022, she added $1.0 million for pediatric infectious disease research at Vanderbilt, including work on antibiotic resistance and infections in children being treated for cancer. "I love all children," she said when announcing that gift. "No child should ever have to suffer."

This January, to mark her 80th birthday, she released a new version of her 1976 song "Light of a Clear Blue Morning" with Lainey Wilson, Miley Cyrus, Queen Latifah, and Reba McEntire, with proceeds benefiting pediatric cancer research at Monroe Carell.

The Dolly Parton Birthing Unit in Her Hometown

Parton helped raise money to build LeConte Medical Center, a new hospital in Sevier County, Tennessee, where she grew up. A 2007 benefit concert brought in $500,000, and Dollywood and her Dixie Stampede dinner theater pledged $250,000 each, a combined $1.0 million for the project.

The hospital opened in Sevierville in 2010 with the 30,000-square-foot Dolly Parton Center for Women's Services. The center includes the Dolly Parton Birthing Unit, where more than 600 babies were born in 2024. In a rural county, that access means families can deliver close to home.

Speaking with the Chief Healthcare Executive, Schaefer admitted the facility was excited for their collaboration with Dolly. And when it came to the donation, he refused to reveal the amount. “What I can tell you is that she has made a generational and transformational commitment to Children’s and its mission, and that commitment is something that goes beyond our wildest expectations, that is beyond generous, and will be a lifeline for this mission for now and for years to come.”

Parton has supported children and health care causes in East Tennessee for years. In 1997, Parton and her Dollywood theme park donated $100,000 for a new birthing center to be built at Fort Sanders Sevier Medical Center. And when LeConte Medical Center replaced Fort Sanders Sevier Medical Center in 2010, it included a new Dolly Parton Center for Women's Services.

Parton has served as an honorary chairperson of the Dr. Robert F. Thomas Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization that supports Sevier County's health care needs. The foundation is named in honor of the doctor who delivered her.

# Dolly Parton's health care legacy: Two decades of giving

20 years of anything isn't mentioned anywhere.

It’s the title of the article you’re complaining about.

You say, after all that - the known gifts she gave, knowing she was very discreet with her charitable giving - that she wouldn’t pay an individual patient’s medical bills, okay. I disagree. I think you’re wrong. I think tumblr person probably had an experience extremely close to the one they describe. I’ve supported this with a number of articles from reputable outlets and the only delta is how generous we think Dolly was. You don’t want to give her the final mile, giving to individual mothers with sick infants, okay. But I’m gonna.