Christmas at Dollywood is re-airing tonight at midnight ET. That movie highlights Dolly Parton's
Imagination Library charity which is a book gifting program that mails free books to underprivileged children from birth until they begin school.
At the beginning of Covid, Dolly gave $1million dollars to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help fund research efforts for a Covid vaccine. That turned into the Moderna vaccine.
This June, Dolly donated another $1 million to pediatric infectious disease research at the same Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
On a related note: Jeff Bezos (founder of
Amazon and 4th richest man in the world,) has recently promised to give away the vast majority of his fortune during his lifetime to charitable causes. But he admitted that ensuring that the most worthy causes benefit is proving as difficult.
How is this related to Dolly?
Bezos came up with the bright idea that if he awards some of the money to people who've already proven they are trustworthy and are already creating or giving away money to their own vetted, charitable causes, that saves him a step at having to vet every cause himself or by his team.
Yesterday, Jeff Bezos awarded Dolly Parton $100million dollars to give to charities of her choice as part of Bezos’s annual Courage and Civility award. 
Jeff Bezo's partner, Lauren Sánchez said, “All she wants to do is bring light into other people’s worlds,” said “And so we couldn’t have thought of someone better than to give this award to Dolly, and we know she’s going to do amazing things with it.”
Go Dolly!
And the next no jacket day may not be until the end April-May. And I've learned never to give a final wash and put away my winter coat until late May.
