Today's Kindness #257: January 19, 2023
Have A Holly Dolly Day!🎶
Today is county-music legend Dolly Parton's 77th birthday!
If you only know Dolly Parton as a 10-time Grammy-winning country music superstar behind hits like "Jolene" and "9 to 5," you'd be right. But that sure ain't the whole picture.
Parton, who turns 77 years young today, is actually a force of nature who has given back again and again over the years, sometimes in seriously surprising ways.
She's a longtime philanthropist. In 2016, her Dollywood Foundation donated $1,000 per month to families impacted by wildfires in Tennessee. And in 2020, she donated $1 million to battle the coronavirus - a donation that's paying off right now.
Parton launched Imagination Library back in 1995, intending to give children in Tennessee free books each month. But the program took wing and today, Imagination Library is now one of the largest literary programs globally. They've distributed more than 100 million books to children, a tremendous gift that became the subject of a documentary in 2020 called "The Library that Dolly Built."
How can you celebrate Dolly? Listen to some of your Dolly favorites and then check out the many other amazing things she has done along her 77 year lifespan!
“I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life. I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain. I re-read passages from my favorite books. I hold the little treasures that somebody special gave me. These small actions help remind me that there are so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world.”
~ Dolly Parton
Happy birthday, Dolly! Here's to many more years of being truly wonderful.