Dolly Parton Is Being Honored with a Big-Deal Philanthropic Award
She’s a recipient of the 2022 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.
Today, The Carnegie Corporation of New York announced the 2022 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy honorees — and it’s no surprise our gal Dolly Parton is among the recipients of this philanthropic award. The acclaimed country musician is also a renowned philanthropist, with her sizable donations to causes including COVID-19 vaccine research and pediatric disease research.
Parton founded the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 to help the children of Sevier County, Tennessee (where she was born and raised). The foundation’s My People Fund helped hundreds of families who lost their homes during the 2018 wildfires in Sevier County and regularly provides scholarship money to local students. Its flagship program, the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, has sent over 186 million free books to children around the world.
The singer has also funded pediatric infectious disease research at Vanderbilt University and financially contributed to the development of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Established in 2001 to honor the values modeled by Andrew Carnegie, the Carnegie Medal celebrates outstanding philanthropic leadership. Candidates are nominated by 22 Carnegie institutions in the United States and Europe, and more than 65 honorees have been awarded the medal thus far.
This year’s other Carnegie Medal recipients include Manu Chandaria, founder of the Chandaria Foundation (Nairobi, Kenya, and Geneva, Switzerland); Lyda Hill, founder of the Lyda Hill Philanthropies (Dallas, Texas); and Lynn Schusterman and Stacy Schusterman, co-founder and chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies (Tulsa, Oklahoma).
Congrats, Dolly! Keep up the charitable work.
