On Tuesday, Dollywood Parks and Resorts announced that beginning Feb. 24 of this year, they will cover 100% of fees, tuition, and books for their employees who pursue further education. Through Herschend’s GROW U, a new program behind their operating partner, Herschend Enterprises, the Dolly Parton businesses will cover the expenses of all Dollywood employees, from seasonal to part-time to full-time employees.

President of The Dollywood Company, Eugene Naughton, released a statement saying “One of The Dollywood Foundation’s key tenets is to ‘learn more.’ This program is created with that very tenet in mind. We want our hosts to develop themselves through advanced learning to fulfill the foundation’s other tenets: care more, dream more, and be more. When our hosts strive to grow themselves, it makes our business and our community a truly better place. We care about our hosts’ development and we want their future to grow because of love—not loans.”

Always been the best

According to the release, the program has “more than 100 fully-funded programs” and “includes diploma, degree, and certificate programs across 30 learning partners, including programs in high-demand fields such as business administration and leadership, culinary, finance, technology, and marketing.” The program will also offer partial funding for “150 additional programs in fields including hospitality, engineering, human resources, and art design.”

Parton is something of a modern-day saint. She has been able to float above so much of the divisiveness of so-called culture wars by just being herself. Dolly has spent time in recent years promoting and putting her money behind vaccine development, supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, and opposing blatantly offensive anti-trans bathroom bills. She also gives away tons of free books to children. She gave $1,000 a month to families that lost their homes in the Tennessee fires of 2016 until they could get back on their feet. 

This past week it was announced that Dolly is a nominee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If, for some strange reason, she isn’t voted in, the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame will probably cease to be a thing. Just saying.

The responses on social media tell the story.