Dolly Parton is a true one of a kind, that’s for sure.
At a press event on Tuesday to support her Imagination Library foundation, Dolly joined Ohio First Lady Fran DeWine and attended a private luncheon on the Ohio State University campus to raise funds and awareness for her Imagination Library program.
According to WKRN, part of the new program they’re rolling out will mail “one high-quality, age-appropriate book each month,” to Ohio kids until they turn five years old.
All kids in Ohio are now eligible to enroll in the free program, with 327,743 already signed up (which already makes up 45% of eligible kids under age 5 in Ohio).
In addition, Imagination Library has donated over 186 million books to children worldwide, and Dolly was inspired to start it after growing up with “the smartest man she ever knew,” her father, who was illiterate and always wanted her to have a good education.
Of course, Dolly is an incredible philanthropist, and is constantly expanding her charitable efforts and making the world a better place through initiatives like these.
And during a conversation between Dolly and the First Lady, DeWine asked Dolly how she would like to be remembered many years from now, prompting a more serious and thought-out response.
But of course, Dolly came ready with that classic wit, saying:
“Well, a lot of people ask me, you know, what I want people to say about me a 100 years from now.
I want them to say, ‘Golly, she looks good for her age!'”
I wanna be Dolly Parton when I grow up…
She added a more serious response, too, saying she wants to encourage people to keep their families together and to get involved in worthwhile, meaningful endeavors, whatever that may be:
“But in addition to that, I just want to be a person remembered to try and make life a little better for myself, as well as for everybody else, and trying to pull families together, keep families together.
‘Cuz as we all know, in this and day and time, life is just nuts, and people are just nuts. You don’t know what to make of anything.
So I really think the family is so important, so I would say just to get involved that are meaningful.”
She continued, saying that she hopes we can all heal the “great divides” we all experience in many different aspects of our lives:
“Try gotta stay together as best you can, heal the great divides going on in our lives. Whether it be our family, ‘cuz also there’s a scripture in the Bible that says ‘A house divided cannot stand,’ but a family divided cannot stand.
Or anything that’s divided is not gonna stand, ‘cuz there’s just too much stuff. So I think we need to just really try hard to work on things that are meaningful, especially ourselves.”
Amen to that, Dolly…
And of course, she couldn’t leave without singing a little “9 to 5” for the crowd:
A lil “9 to 5” to celebrate! pic.twitter.com/fpvnytU4WW
— WKRN News 2 (@WKRN) August 9, 2022
You can check out the entire interview with Dolly here:
