Dolly Parton has been awarded the $100 million “Courage and Civility Award” by Amazon’s founder & leader none other than Jeff Bezos. “When people are in a position to help, you should help. And I know that I’ve always said, I try to put my money where my heart is. And I think you do the same thing,” Dolly Parton told billionaire Jeff Bezos as he awarded her the money. She joins prior recipients Chef José Andrés and Van Jones, the inaugural who are the winners of the award in 2021. The money doesn’t have a designated cause it needs to be used toward aside from general charity. Andrés said he used his funds to help feed Ukrainians amid the country’s war with Russia, although Jones never specified what cause he would use the funds for. In March, he said the award gave him a 10-year window to disperse the funds. Parton has yet to specify how she intends to donate her $100 million sum.
She said in an interview at the time with BBC’s “The One Show,” that she felt “honored and proud.”
“I just felt so proud to have been part of that little seed money that will hopefully grow into something great and help to heal this world,” she said. “I’m a very proud girl today to know I had anything at all to do with something that’s going to help us through this crazy pandemic.”
In 1988, Parton established the Dollywood Foundation, and eventually The Imagination Library, a program that helps children across the world access books.
Among her philanthropic efforts in her home state of Tennessee, Parton also created the Dolly Parton Scholarship, which provides $15,000 to recipients towards a college education.
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