httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9re90HG2dw
Country music icon Dolly Parton’s home and businesses in East Tennessee were spared from deadly wildfires last month, but she’s pitching in to help her neighbors recover from the devastation.
Parton set a lofty goal of giving $1,000 to every family that has lost their primary residence through the Dollywood Foundation My People Fund.
“It doesn’t sound like a lot of money but we’re talking about thousands of people, hundreds and hundreds of people,” Parton said Tuesday.
“If we could give $1,000 a month for six months, that would give people a chance. And if we raise more money than we hope to, then we’ll just do more.”
This Christmas, she’ll return home to East Tennessee to see the damage from the fires that spread to more than 2,500 structures in Sevier County and killed 14 people.
Her famous friends stepped up to help before the telethon even began, with large donations from Kenny Chesney, Taylor Swift, the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music.
Parton said she feels a kinship to all the hard-working mountain people who have lost so much around her.
“They have to be tough. You have to be physically tough, you have to be emotionally tough, and you have to be strong. People have to scrape their living out of the soil in a lot of ways.”
She added: “That’s why it is so important because all of these people, even though they are not blood kin, they really do feel like my people.”