Beloved country music icon Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, Aug. 25 after fighting a brief battle with cancer. The singer, songwriter and actress was 80.
Parton’s passing was announced by her nephew, Bryan Seaver, in a video from the musician’s family to her fans all over the world.
“Sadness lies with us, but not with Dolly,” Seaver reassured fans mourning the star’s death. “Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus, surely met by [her husband] Carl, her parents and countless others who have watched her and longed for her to meet them in the heavens.”
While Parton may have passed on, however, her impact will continue to live on for decades to come — because while she was a singer, songwriter, actress, she was a philanthropist — a giver — first and foremost.
“I’m kind of addicted to the feeling of giving, knowing that I’m doing something good for someone else,” Parton said in a 2021 interview with People magazine.
Give Parton did, as she donated to and even created countless organizations using her estimated net worth of $450 to 650 million — all to help those in need.
In 2016, Parton, for instance, raised $12.5 million for victims of a wildfire in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In 2021, she raised another $700,000 for people affected by Hurricane Helene across Appalachia and donated $1 million for the same cause, with the Dollywood Foundation matching the contribution. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she gave yet another $1 million to fund the early stages of the vaccine.
Although Parton’s talent as an entertainer has left its own irreplaceable and unmistakable mark on the world, it is not an unmatchable one, because through her more material, monetary contributions, she has changed thousands of lives for the better and formed an equally long-lasting, intergenerational legacy.
As Seaver emphasized in the video announcing Parton’s death, Parton paved the way for people from all walks of life, giving them hope that “anything was possible.”
“She never saw a door she couldn’t open,” Seaver said, “and the doors she opened made and changed history.”
She opened one such door when she founded the Imagination Library in 1995 through the Dollywood Foundation. The Imagination Library, a program that provides one free, age-appropriate book every month to children from birth to age 5 through the mail, was started in an effort to increase childhood literacy — something that she saw her own family members struggle with growing up in rural Appalachia.
“[My philanthropic commitment] actually started because my father could not read and write, and I saw how crippling that could be,” Parton said during an acceptance speech in 2022, when she was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy. “My dad was a very smart man. And I often wondered what he could have done had he been able to read and write. So that is the inspiration.”
This philanthropy, of course, did not and does not extend to only Tennesseans — but it reaches far closer to home than a typical Alabaman might expect.
United Way of Etowah County — a local branch part of a global network of community-based United Way organizations that raise funds and coordinate support for local health and human services — celebrated 20 years of being partners with the Imagination Library of Alabama on Aug. 9, just over two weeks before Parton’s death.
One of the key visions for United Way of Etowah County is being able to see “successful children moving toward becoming productive citizens,” as stated on their website.
As Raevan Bagley, Student Success Director of the organization, explained to Gadsden Messenger, by partnering with Parton’s Imagination Library, United Way of Etowah County can take some steps toward that goal.
“In 2025, 13,076 books were mailed in Etowah County,” Bagley stated. “From January of this year until present, there have been 8,945 books and counting mailed out in Etowah County.”
With 1,084 children currently enrolled in and 7,314 children having graduated from the Imagination Library program through United Way in Etowah County alone, the impact Parton has had on childhood literacy has been — to say the least — exponential.
And even death does not seem to hinder her influence on childhood literacy.
As Bagley further noted, there had been a flood of people in Etowah County enrolling their children in the Imagination Library since Parton’s passing.
“There’s been a massive influx for every county since then,” she emphasized.
But Bagley had her own personal story behind her fondness for the program: “My daughter is 10, and that’s how I started her library at home — through the Imagination Library!”
She was able to list off many things that she liked about the Imagination Library using her own experience and laughed as she explained that children in the program are partially happy about getting their own mail. She likes that, too, of course — but really, it is more about the books and the fact that they are expecting them.
“That’s my favorite part; they’re excited about the books!”
Bagley stated that if families want to enroll their children in the Imagination Library program, simply call United Way of Etowah County at (256) 547-2581 or email her at successby6@uwoec.org. The same process works to sponsor a child for $31 a year or donate to the program: just call or email United Way of Etowah County and ask for Raevan Bagley.
“Every year we host our annual fundraiser, Girlfriend Gala: A Girl’s Night Out for Children’s Literacy, which funds the Imagination Library in Etowah and Blount County,” Bagley also added. “This is the only tablescapes event in the county, and it’s getting bigger every year.” Coincidentally, she stated, Girlfriend Gala was Dolly-themed for one event just a few years ago.
Next year’s Girlfriend Gala is scheduled for March 12, 2027. Bagley encouraged everyone to visit the United Way Success by 6 Facebook page to find out more about the event; if they wish to donate to, sponsor, or participate in Girlfriend Gala, they can reach out through the previously mentioned channels to do so.
Although Dolly Parton has now departed this world, she has left behind a gift worth resting on a bed of cotton over — the bolstering of childhood literacy, and thus the success of children who will be born years from now, children who will never meet her but will always hear of what she did for them.
