Dolly Parton’s $1M donation: ‘I’m willing to do my part’

Dolly Parton has done another good deed.

The country music star has donated $1 million to pediatric infectious disease research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, and it’s a big deal: According to the center, the gift will help doctors with their research in understanding “how viruses and bacteria cause disease, understanding and preventing resistance to antibiotics, preventing and treating infections, diagnosing and treating infections in children with cancer and research to define the impact of childhood infections throughout the world.”

“I love all children,” Parton told Vanderbilt. “No child should ever have to suffer, and I’m willing to do my part to try and keep as many of them as I can as healthy and safe as possible.”

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because the music legend previously gave $1 million of the earnings from her prolific career to the same institution, and that money helped to fund Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, which was administered to the masses in 2020.

After that contribution paid off, Parton told Today, “I’m just happy that anything I do can help somebody else. When I donated the money to the COVID fund, I just wanted it to do good, and evidently, it is. Let’s just hope we find a cure real soon.”

The “Jolene” singer/songwriter has made it a habit of giving a portion of her estimated $350 million fortune to the causes she cares about, especially healthcare, education and equality.

“I’m kind of addicted to the feeling of giving,” she told People in December 2021. “Knowing that I’m doing something good for someone else.”

Parton noted then, though, that she feels uncomfortable when she’s being recognized for her contributions. In fact, she almost didn’t sit for that conversation with the magazine, where she was being lauded as one of the people of the year.

“I am not all that,” she said. “I’m glad that I stand for enough stuff to where I’m not the worst person in the world.”

Parton explained that she doesn’t want to be worshipped — something she sees happening with some celebrities — because of what she reads in her Bible. But she thinks it’s “great” if she can set an example.